


After The Vault: A Commonwealth Story (Part: I)

by Whitelightstep



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Alternative Quest Endings (non-cannon), Brotherhood of Steel - Freeform, Deathclaw, Eventual Sexual Content, F/M, Pre-Relationship, Prydwen, Relationship(s), Romance, Swearing, Synths (Humans), Vertibird, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-10 01:03:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 47,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5562763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whitelightstep/pseuds/Whitelightstep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Female Sole Survivor, Gladen Reed (previously Gladen Smith), exits the Vault to find the world around her utterly changed from what she once knew. Feeling lost and unsure of where to go now, Codsworth shows up and is able to get her back on her feet. Along the way she learns a lot about herself, about others and slowly carves out her identity in this new world. As time goes on, what seemed complicated to understand is only the beginning. It goes so much deeper than she ever imagined</p><p>What started out as a short story has evolved into a lengthy novel as time went on. Initially triggered by the Blind Betrayal Quest in Fallout 4, I've gone back and documented my character from the beginning. Chapters are getting longer as time goes on with the focus eventually falling mostly to Paladin Danse and Female Sole Survivor, Gladen Reed. Later chapters may contain sexual content. Initial chapters are mostly just character development. Tried to stay mostly cannon. There may be a few non-cannon events that increase in number as the story continues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Where to Go Now?

**Author's Note:**

> (Spoilers: This story contains events of my playthrough with Fallout 4. It will contain Spoilers)

The sun of a strange sky beat down on her as she slowly wiped at the tears that continued to roll down her cheeks. It was hard to tell how long she’d been sitting at the edge of the platform after coming to the surface. She’d fallen to her knees as her eyes adjusted, unable to process what she was seeing. Everything came rushing at her and she couldn’t think anymore. Time stood still. In the vault, Gladen had held it together as best she could. Exploring room-by-room, trying to make some sense of what the hell had happened. The giant insects, the dead bodies. What was going on? Where was everybody? She’d even checked the other pods, people she knew. Dead. All of them dead.

Nate was gone. She remembered that much. The people. The deep cold. Seeing the struggle. It felt like she was the one who had been shot. The ache in her chest threatened to kill her too. On top of that was her son, ripped from his father’s hands by strangers she had never seen. Her hands still ached from pounding on the pod as she desperately tried to smash the glass, unable to change the events as they unfolded before her.

The dim of her Pip-Boy became more noticeable now as the sun disappeared on the horizon. A chill came with the disappearing sun. Without much energy, she flipped through the device on her arm, not sure exactly what she was looking for. Click. Click. Click. The screen scrolled some information and she idly read it, retaining none of the information it presented as she sat with her grief.

The bombs had fallen. Time had passed. A lot of time. But how much? The computer couldn’t tell her. She tuned into a few signals that blipped up on the screen, but quickly turned them off. Until she was in a safe and secure place, it wouldn’t be smart to draw attention. She heaved a ragged breath. No more tears came. It was like she was empty in every sense of the word.

Somehow she came to her feet, looking around. Exploration of the immediate area yielded a few scarce supplies. The 10mm from the Vault had some ammo, but having some extra rounds on hand was a good idea. The vehicles were rusted beyond salvage. An unexpected skeleton startled her as her Pip-Boy light illuminated it in the dark. Still, there were some useful items worth taking.

“I guess… we were lucky,” she said to no one in particular, finding a familiar canned food item amongst the scattered debris.

The dusty 10mm was reloaded with fresh rounds and checked. There were a few things that gave her a bit of an edge, she supposed. Nothing would come of simply sitting around here exposed in a world that she couldn’t begin to understand. Protection, shelter, food, water. Basics. Start with the basics and then a plan.

The only thing she could be sure of is that she had no idea what she was going to do.

* * *

 

It had been approximately three days that she had stayed in Sanctuary after leaving Vault 111. At first there was apprehension on what to do next. Where to begin? What to do? Gladen had no idea who had taken Shaun, how long they had been in the Vault, who those people even were. Amongst the whirlwind of thoughts about what the next step would be, a distinctly familiar voice had cried out from the ruins: _“As I live and breathe! It’s… It’s REALLY you!”_

Codsworth had found her wandering Sanctuary while he was trimming the brambles that had once been lively bushes in the front yard. One of his favorite tasks to tend to.

“Codsworth… wha… what happened?”

It had taken the poor machine some time to answer. It seemed confused, stuck in it’s duties, worrying about the state of the yard. Something about the posies being of a frightful state. It apologized about the polish on the car and how it simply didn’t work now that there was hardly any metal left to polish.

Knowing this was her only link, the only familiar thing left in this wasteland, she mustered her patience as best she could and rephrased her answers to perhaps get a clearer picture as she spoke to her, well, friend. When she pressed about Shaun, the clearer picture was not so easy.

“… hunger induced paranoia. Not eating properly for 200 years will do that, I’m afraid,” Codsworth had said, gesturing casually with a metallic arm.

“200 years? What? Are you…?” she tried to wrap her head around what the hell was happening. What the hell was happening?

Everything after that seemed a bit of a blur. Codsworth still seemed a bit off at moments, but seemed to be running conversational protocols with higher functionality as time went on. Perhaps having additional dialog to analyze allowed better system-checks to correct glitches in the sequencing. He started to make more sense. As much sense as could be made.

And so Gladen had stayed close to home. Codsworth insisted on cooking up something after collecting a few stray cans from pantries in the community. At first she’d politely declined; How could canned goods be, well, _good_ after _200 years_? However, that refusal seemed to put quite the damper on the poor machine’s mood. With a sigh, she resigned and admitted she was famished.

Turns out 200 year old canned food wasn’t _that_ bad. It wasn’t good, but… well… it was still kind of food.

Gladen had investigated the ruined buildings, picking up a few things here or there. It had been nearly dark when she came across the handybot that first night and he already mentioned several times just how different things were now. More dangerous. More unpredictable. The giant cockroaches were even wandering on the surface, quickly dispatched by the duo. What else was there now? Were there other mutated bugs? What about other things?

Codsworth chattered on and on about the events he had seen over the years from his perspective of the little community. Turns out he had ventured off at one point only to be attacked by others. So, there were still others, she noted to herself. Occasionally Gladen had to redirect the conversation when Codsworth would get stuck on a rant about when he had officially run out of cleaning products, or the time when the roof had collapsed onto the floor just after he’d just swept. But the amount of information her familiar friend was able to provide her was beyond valuable.

Armed with a better understanding of what had happened in the world, even if it was from the perspective of a handybot, helped Gladen figure out at least a few things. First, no one lived around here anymore and it sounded like any who showed up were just passing through. Second, the amount of dangers facing her now were unlike any she had ever faced before. And third, she still had no idea who killed her husband and took Shaun.


	2. Getting to Know the Commonwealth

Feral ghouls. Ugh. How she hated feral ghouls. They were fast, inhumanly strong, dripped radiation and walked through bullets like some monstrous version of a mime in the wind. Looking through her medium-powered scope, she counted off in her head. At least five stumbling around in the immediate area out in the open. Surely there were more wandering in and out between the buildings as she navigated this small city. What had it been called? Cambridge? Carefully she crept along the buildings with her back to the wall, or any broken down vehicle, looking for a door to hopefully grab a high vantage point. Codsworth whirled quietly behind her, oddly silent. Probably because his most recent outburst of information regarding a specific location they were visiting drew the attention of several nearby molerats requiring a fair bit of ammunition to subdue.

Gladen had been quite cross with him after that and threatened to venture on without him if it ever happened again. So he followed along silently, noting things he would tell her later when they came back to camp.

They found their way now to a building with stairs leading to a second floor. Switching to her modified 10mm, she swept the room for hostiles before moving up. No ghouls. All clear. She quietly returned to the main floor and set up a fragmentation mine near the entrance, just in case. Stealth was the name of the game for her these days.

Everyone had the advantage out here. They had grown up in this world, they saw the world change. Not her. She had only a few short weeks out in this place they called the Commonwealth. People were strange now. Skittish. Or violent. There didn’t seem to be a middle ground. Shoot first, ask questions later. Maybe. Usually just shoot later too just to be on the safe side.

Checking her magazine, she drew her slightly modified .45 combat rifle and browsed hostiles through the scope while crouching on the second floor. Half the wall she hid behind was gone, only one window intact. She braced herself against the brick and counted once again. Six feral ghouls. Inhaling and then a pause, she sighted in. _Bang._ Her target’s head exploded like an overripe melon. The sound echoed through the square but didn’t reveal her position. A handful of other ghouls stirred and began to wander around. _Shit, why are they so fast?_ One of the ghouls in her sights paused, and again, its head was ripped from its body as she fired another round.

She could hear the distinct ring of Codsworth shouting bravely as he once again took to the field of battle. As long as he didn’t reveal her position, she was fine with him joining the fray.

Again Gladen fired, clearing several rounds, dropping nearby ferals as they continued to wander in circles in an attempt to track her location. As she was reloading her next magazine, the click of her Pip-Boy alerted her to a nearby signal. Hearing Codsworth declare victory in the room below, she took a moment to tune into the new signal. Military Frequency AF95. _Military?_ Was there still such a thing?

_“This is scribe Haylen of reconnaissance squad Gladius to any unit in transmission range…”_

“It’s a distress signal,” Gladen said to herself, staring at the dim green glow of her Pip-Boy.

_“… Our unit has sustained casualties and is running low on supplies…. We’re requesting support or evac from our position at Cambridge Police Station…”_

“Cambridge Police Station?” The name was familiar. With practiced movements she quickly switched to her local map. An icon not far from their position indicated they were only a few blocks away. The rest of the transmission was riddled with static, but it was clear they were looking for assistance from their fellow units. She wasn’t of their unit, but maybe she could help? Gladen idly chewed her lip for a moment, thinking. Currently she was searching for a new power core for the Power Armor Sturges and the Minutemen had helped her obtain a few weeks back. It was back at Sanctuary. A long ways away from here.

“Codsworth?” she called out.

“Yes m’um?” he spun up the stairs to join her, his buzzsaw arm covered in feral filth.

“How many of those frag grenades did we manage to bring?” she said, checking the supplies on her own person. Codsworth had been retrofitted to carry some of her more needed items.

“I believe we brought 8 m’um. And I believe three fragmentation mines?” he whirled, tri-eyes adjusting in the half-light.

 _Beep-tick-BOOM_!

The floor below them rocked and a large plume of dusk rose up the stairs. The familiar smell of burnt feral ghoul wafted up from the lower level. Somewhere in the building something large shifted and fell.

“Two fragmentation mines, then, m’um,” Codsworth boasted proudly.

“There’s a distress signal coming from the Cambridge Police Station,” she was double-checking her gear. “I think we should check it out, see if there’s anything we can do.”

“Do you think that wise? The last time you barely got out with your life. Had it not been for that Power Armor you had found, that Deathclaw would have torn you to shreds!” Codsworth spun his eyes dramatically.

“If we want to make a difference in this world, we need to start helping each other,” she managed a twitch of a smile before pulling out her rifle and making her way down the stairs.

Codsworth made a noise that could only be taken as disapproval. Still, he followed Gladen down to the main floor. Looking down at his buzzsaw, he briefly wondered if he’d ever get all the ghoul bits cleaned out of his servos after all this.

* * *

The Cambridge Police Station wasn’t too far from their position, but the streets made navigating difficult. Feral ghouls were growing in number just as cover began to grow scarce. Gladen switched to her 10mm as it threatened to turn into a more close-combat type of event. Suddenly the road ahead of them was punctuated with an unfamiliar sound of laser rifles and bursts of glowing red rifle rounds. Floodlights turned the half-light of dusk into what seemed like day.

Gladen was pressed up against a broken down blue car as she watched a surge of feral ghouls break through the gates of what she believed to be the police station. They were everywhere. _And still so fast._

“M’um?” Codsworth asked with a rising tone.

“We have to help, come on,” she said as she lifted up her 10mm and began to aim high in the crowd of mutated forms. A headshot here or there might help them even the odds, if only a little bit.

Only some of them noticed her as the main surge pressed forward through the gate. Red laser rounds flashed all directions as people inside attempted to hold ground. Codsworth jumped into the fray, buzzsaw and flamer creating a secondary diversion and buying some valuable time. Who knew a butler could be so bold? Still, some had caught sight of the Vault dweller and pressed forward as she pulled the trigger repeatedly. A few dropped. One lunged and jumped at her, nearly knocking her over. She quickly spun to the side and jumped over a nearby car. Trying to win against a feral in hand-to-hand was suicide.

“Cods, move!” she shouted as she pulled a frag grenade loose and tore at the pin in a practiced movement, lobbing it into the mass of ghouls.

A resounding boom took out a large portion of the clustered group. A second frag followed only moments later, booming deafeningly. The handful that survived crawled helplessly with legs grotesquely taken off in the blast. Gladen pressed through, taking headshots at the squirming ghouls on the ground to finish them off, keeping her back towards the wall and gate as she went through. Codsworth continued to fend off any that were still standing all the while yelling some bold, if somewhat ridiculous, phrases.

Inside the wall seemed like a whole different world. The floodlights illuminated everything. Sandbags and catwalks showed intelligent fortification that she had not expected to see. It had mostly been raiders with crude modifications of older structures that she’d encountered in the past few weeks. This looked highly more organized. But there was no time to analyze the intricate defenses that had been set up. Ghouls were still wrecking havoc.

A large figure in Power Armor stood at the centre of the fortified building stairs, laser rifle cutting through ghouls with its distinct red glow and odd sound. But they were swarming him, and a quick glance over her shoulder identified two others at the stairs that didn’t boast such protective gear. They weren’t able to help him with the swarm. It was too risky for them to take the shots from behind either, least they shoot their comrade by mistake.

“Civilian in the perimeter! Check your fire!” she heard someone shout amidst the chaos. Well, they knew she was here now.

Gladen lifted up the sights of her 10mm and walked towards the crowd of ghouls, catching the ones furthest away from the man in armor. Some fell. Some turned towards her and ran with arms flailing. Red laser rounds came from the top of the stairs as well, missing her entirely and finding targets amongst the mass as they untangled themselves away from the man in Power Armor. A ghoul with half its face torn apart rushed her by surprise. With gritted teeth she swung downward and caught the creature with the butt of her pistol grip. The weakened skull crumpled under the assault and the monster fell to the wayside.

Two magazines, a barrage of laser rounds and one close-up headshot under the chin later, the majority of the ghouls in the complex lay still on the ground. Foul smelling blood oozed and made the ground mildly slick. An odd sensation to walk through.

“Cods?!” Gladen called out, pistol still raised, checking the area in one final sweep.

“Here, m’um,” he said cheerfully. If a robot could whistle, he very well would have been as he rejoined her.

The Vault dweller was relieved to see her companion still in tip-top shape, if a little more gross now. She’d probably have to help clean out his servos after all of this or she’d never heard the end of it.

“We appreciate the assistance, civilian. But what’s your business here?”

The man in Power Armor turned to stand in front of Gladen. An imposing figure to be certain. If his Power Armor wasn’t enough to demand respect, his tone and body language were entirely different from those she’d met on the Commonwealth. This was a dangerous man. His gaze was intense, analytical. Measuring. Not someone to be messed with.

“I’m… just trying to survive out here…. Like everyone else,” she managed to say, unsure of exactly who these people were.

“The way you charged in and engaged those ferals, I find that a bit difficult to believe,” the stranger replied, brows raising slightly. “Are you from a local settlement?”

Gladen briefly wondered what to tell them. She’d packed away her blue Vault suit shortly after leaving Sanctuary for the first time and before meeting Preston. It somehow seemed… inadvisable to wear something that may have made her a potential target, after all. It seemed like a fair hunch that Vault dwellers were probably a target to most groups in the Commonwealth.

“I’m from Sanctuary Hills… on the other side of Concord,” she explained instead. It was true, after all.

“I’ve seen the location on our maps, but I’ve never visited the area myself. There isn’t much over there for us to collect. If I appear suspicious, it’s because our mission here has been difficult,” he went on to say. “Since the moment we arrived in the Commonwealth, we’ve been constantly under fire.”

It wasn’t hard to imagine. She wasn’t sure how many of ‘we’ there were for this group, but it was obviously not a rag-tag group of settlers. This was something bigger. The way they kept their lights on at dusk when she’d found them, the way they set up walls that didn’t blend into the landscape… No wonder they were constantly being targeted. They stood out like a sore thumb. They used military signals, military communications. These people were serious about whatever it was they were doing.

“If you want to continue pitching in, we could use another gun on our side,” he said, looking the stranger over once more, as if double-checking his intuition and brief assessment.

“I’d be glad to continue to help, but… I’ll need more of an explanation first,” Gladen said, still unsure of who these people were. They were both being careful, it seemed.

“Very well,” the man in Power Armor shifted, standing just a bit taller than before. “I’m Paladin Dance, Brotherhood of Steel. Over there is Scribe Haylen and Knight Rhys.”

Paladin Danse went on to describe their situation, how he was down a man and their supplies weren’t going to last them much longer. Their situation was turning dire and unless they got word out to their superiors, there wasn’t a fallback plan to go to. They would be in serious trouble. Being in the Commonwealth was one thing. Being in the Commonwealth after attracting that much attention and then being cut off from ones resources? That was a recipe for disaster.

Gladen was usually a quick judge of character, but this team before her was like trying to read a wall. It made sense. Everyone had walls now. Especially in this time of the world. But boy, did these people keep their cards close to their chest. She glanced back at Codsworth, who simply rotated his eyes in a curious fashion. It was obvious that he wanted to advise her to be cautious around these people they knew little to nothing about. She decided against asking Codsworth his opinion. It probably wouldn’t win her any confidence points with these people if she asked her robot butler for intel.

“No time to waste. Let’s get moving,” Gladen decided after a moment, checking her 10mm, stashing it in its holster and pulling out her pipe rifle instead.

“Outstanding,” Paladin Danse appeared to be pleased by that answer, or perhaps just not angry. It was hard to tell.


	3. ArcJet Systems

“Paladin Danse!” she shouted as the scene in front of her took a fiery turn.

After entering the building once known as ArcJet Systems, hostiles in the area were immediately noted. However, they weren’t like any hostiles Gladen had run into before. These were… robots. Some kind of robots. Highly functioning, bi-pedal, humanoid-like. They had humanoid faces and structure, but that’s where the resemblance ended. They were metallic skeletal frames with a highly advanced functional core system that operated everything. Whoever created them had modeled them after the human frame and organs. _Unsettling._

Not only were they completely foreign, they were incredibly difficult to take down. They didn’t feel pain like the Raiders did. They didn’t really take cover, even. And worst of all, they were firing similar laser-based weaponry not unlike the ones the Brotherhood had been using at the compound. Each white-hot round hissed by with deadly purpose. Even a near-hit singed the skin as it flashed by.

Paladin Danse and the civilian had made their way through entrance of the building without much mishap. It took Gladen a little longer to figure out the weak points in the synths structure, having never encountered them before. Like most, headshots worked well if ones aim was good. Otherwise simply overpowering them with rounds was the second option.

Before moving on, the Vault dweller had stopped and picked up one of their rifles and given it a quick once over. Quickly she stuffed some extra Cell casings in her pockets and moved forward with the newly acquired gear. It made sense. If any other hostiles were to fall on their way to their mission then it would be easy to resupply on ammo instead of risking that they had brought enough with them from the outside. Paladin Danse had liked that.

Now he stood at the bottom of the several flights of stairs facing off against a flood of robotic humanoids each armed with powerful laser weapons. They’d been trying to find access to the upper levels but the elevator lacked power. Now they were surrounded on the low ground. His own laser rifle cut through their ranks as he fought to keep them from surrounding him. They were pressing forward at an alarming rate.

A set of metal doors to his left slammed shut. He couldn’t turn to look as he fought to keep the enemy at a distance. Dimly he heard his name being shouted. _Was she in trouble too?_ He gritted his teeth within his helmet, sweat beading on his brow. The display in his visor registered red dots of targets everywhere in his vision.

Suddenly there was a loud, blaring alarm in the immediate area. _WARNING! WARNING!_ A system was starting up, drumming in such a low tone he could feel it in his chest. Again he heard his name. Then suddenly everything went a blinding white and he felt a surge of heat hit him like he was standing in the blast radius of ten launched Fatman nukes. He fell back and to his knees, trying desperately to shield his vision from the blinding light.

It felt like hours had passed when it had only been just a few moments. The searing heat threatened to melt his Power Armor. And just as suddenly as it had started it all stopped. Somewhere a blast door opened. He was breathing heavily inside his Power Armor as he tried to get his bearings.

“Paladin Danse!” she shouted, white synth laser rifle in hand as she crossed the fire-blasted room.

The floor around them crackled with heat, scorched and burned. Fused to the floor in charred piles of synthetic parts and metal were the mob of synths that had threatened to overtake the Paladin. He blinked away the light spots from his eyes and reached up to grab the release at the back of his helmet. With a hiss and click it came loose. He pulled it off with a deep inhale.

“Oh my god! Are you alright?” she was asking, nearly reaching out to help him up. At the last second she flinched away. His armor was still glowing hot to the touch.

“Got… cooked by those flames. But thanks to my Power Armor, I’m still in one piece,” he said, face flushed but he was unhurt. He took a few deep breaths before coming to his feet. The hood he wore beneath his Power Armor was soaked with sweat.

“I’m… I’m sorry! I didn’t know that would… the sequence started counting down and I tried to yell…” Gladen tried to explain, feeling responsible that he could have been killed with what had just transpired.

“Old world technology is something we are still striving to… understand. You couldn’t possibly have known what would happen. It’s alright, civilian. We’re still alive. That’s what matters,” he said in a surprisingly reassuring tone. It was still a straightforward kind of tone, but it helped.

Another hiss and click of the Paladin returning his helmet to its couplers and they were ready to press on.

At least now they had a way to get to the transmitter after all that, now that the system was booted up and Gladen had managed to return power to the facility. Even though that had meant engaging what looked like a silo-sized jet engine to accomplish it. Hopefully there would be no more old world technology to make things interesting as they pressed on.

* * *

 

Rhys was openly staring her down at this point as she sat in the Cambridge Police Station, trying her best to ignore him as she ate some slightly warmed up Cram right out of the tin. Paladin Danse was recalling details about the successful mission to Scribe Haylen in an effort to document what took place at ArcJet Systems. It was a bountiful cache of old world technology, so such a report was important. Too bad Rhys seemed to be taking it the wrong way.

Or perhaps it was the fact that Righteous Authority sat propped up against a green ammunitions box beside Gladen’s feet, having been given the incredible weapon from the senior officer after completing their task. She didn’t fully understand why herself either. It was an incredible weapon. Powerful, accurate, modified by Paladin Danse himself, one he favoured heavily. It was a beautiful piece of equipment. He’d insisted she take it. Was it because they’d made it out alive against so many synths? Perhaps he in some way felt in debt to her? Or maybe he felt sorry for her rag-tag weaponry that she used and decided she could do with a better chance of survival? Either way, Rhys was making it openly known that he disliked this strange woman being anywhere near his group.

It probably didn’t help matters much that Paladin Danse formally introduced her as their new recruit just moments before. Rhys seemed to take personal offense to everything, muttering under his breath something about ‘mercenary’ and ‘shouldn’t be trusted’. Haylen seemed more thrilled about the idea of a new recruit. Then again, the duo had obtained the Deep Range Transmitter, further proof that the mission had been successful and so Haylen was in good spirits.

“So you decided to stay, huh?” Rhys spat with distain. Gladen finally made eye contact with him, brows furrowing in a defensive kind of way. “I expected you to take your payment and run.”

“Maybe I got tired of wandering the Commonwealth alone,” she said with a shrug, tired after their mission and wanting to avoid triggering a verbal punching match.

“Well it’s going to take a lot more than one mission to impress me,” Rhys said disdainfully.

“Rhys, that’s enough,” barked Paladin Danse, noticing the situation within his squad. The Knight grunted what appeared to be an apology to his superior before getting up and busying himself in another room, making a point not to so much as look at the new recruit for some time after that.

The situation settled for a bit and a small sense of calm returned to the police station. Paladin Danse had explained that Scribe Haylen and Knight Rhys may have some secondary tasks to attend to while he got in touch with HQ. It shouldn’t take long, but the tasks weren’t going to be cakewalks either. Before getting further intel from the rest of the recon team, Gladen finished up her meal as best she could and decided to take a moment to talk to Paladin Danse.

Honesty and respect. Those were the two things he had asked for. He had given her a chance, taken a bit risk bringing her along and asking for her assistance. She appreciated that. It was hard to figure out a place in this world, and while she wasn’t sure if The Brotherhood was exactly where she would fit it, it was certainly a far cry from half-sleeping in collapsing buildings around the Commonwealth. Maybe this was a chance to be fully honest with someone else for a change. At least with Paladin Danse. He’d earned that much.

“Paladin Danse?” she asked, peering around the doorframe. He was writing brief notes on some type of report. How he held a pencil while in Power Armor was almost as impressive as him taking out a dozen synths. Who has the dexterity for that kind of thing? _He must live and sleep in that armor,_ she thought to herself.

“Something on your mind, Initiate?” he said, looking up from his tasks. He was obviously busy, but took a moment out of his time. “Is this about Rhys?”

“Something is on my mind. No, no, not about Knight Rhys. I just, uh…. I just wanted thank you. For giving me a chance, for trusting me when I first came to the police station. I get Rhys. He’s just trying to be careful. I can respect that. I also wanted to let you know how much I appreciate that you gave me a chance and trusted me enough to let me watch your back. That means a lot.”

Paladin Danse nodded. “You showed promise even when things got tough out there. You kept your cool, did your job and did more than most would out here. It made sense to offer you the position within our ranks.”

“Thank you, Paladin,” Gladen said, feeling better about throwing her caps in with this squad. “You asked that all we give you is our respect and our honesty.”

Her superior nodded again. When she didn't leave right away, it was clear there was something else on her mind. "Is there anything else you wanted to tell me?"

“I didn’t want to tell the others, or anybody really,” she began without really knowing where this would lead. “But I’m new here. Not just here, not just the police station, but here in the Commonwealth. To say things are different here is an understatement. I… don’t have half a clue what to expect anymore. Listen, I’ll just spit it right out. I’m not from a local settlement. I’m from a Vault. Vault 111.”

Nothing really seemed to surprise Paladin Danse before that point, but this did. His eyebrows raised slightly as he looked at his Initiate. This certainly was something he wasn’t expecting.

“You’re a Vault dweller? I suppose that would explain a few things,” he tried to offer supportively. “I could see why you were hesitant to tell anybody. I appreciate that you felt confidence enough to tell me. Honesty amongst squad members can save lives.”

Gladen understood that. If he was to be her superior officer, then he needed to understand where she came from, what made her who she was. That much she understood. “It wasn’t just any Vault,” the Initiate went on to say. A curious expression drew across Paladin Danse’s face. By now, he’d set down his report. “It was some type of… experiment. I’m not entirely sure why. We were frozen. Put in some type of cryostasis. Some type of long term experiment. I don’t remember much. I remember waking up once. And they… they killed him and took my son. I was frozen again after that, then escaped. I found out the limited information I have after hacking into one of the terminals on site. But it wasn’t until I left the Vault that I realized any time had passed at all. Not until I was outside and saw the world and how it’s changed. How even the sky is different. If it wasn’t for Codsworth, the Mr. Handy you saw me with earlier, I’m not sure I’d understand even half of what was happening. Everything is so different now, since the bombs fell in 2077.”

Paladin Danse stared at his initiate with a mixture of awe, surprise and scrutiny. Gladen realized how crazy it must sound once it was actually put to words.

“I… I’m not sure what to say, Initiate,” he responded after a moment. That was a lot of information to take in at once. He was still processing it. Trying to determine if he, frankly, believed any of it.

“It’s true,” Initiate Gladen said softly. “I just thought you should know.”

“You’re telling me that you’re over 200 years old? From a Vault? That would… that would date you as pre-war,” Paladin Danse stated with some surprise.

“I know it sounds crazy. And you don’t have to believe me. I can understand if you don’t. But, that’s my reality. All this, all this around us, everything that’s happening now… It’s something I’m still figuring out.”

It did sound crazy. Paladin Danse was of half a mind to tell his Initiate that he didn’t have time for jokes like this, that she was risking her newly acquired position by committing such a fabricated tale, that any further comments on the topic would risk him re-evaluating if he had made the right choice to even bring her aboard if she was just going to waste all of their time. That was his kneejerk reaction. The more he thought about it, however, the more some things made sense.

Her questions about the synth, about who the Brotherhood of Steel were. How she looked at things and analyzed the world around her. How she seemed to be overly wary all the time about walking around in the Commonwealth. She was this anomaly that he still couldn't quite place. _Maybe_ there was something to this story. 

_What if it was true?_ He thought to himself. _What if all of it were true?_

“Let’s say that you’re telling the truth,” he began carefully. “That you really are from this Vault 111. That you really are a pre-war survivor. That all of this is true. About them freezing you. About holding you in cryostasis for over 200 years. Tell me, then, how did you get out?”

“I’m not sure,” she replied, relieved he was at least asking questions. It was a start. “When I fell out of my cryopod, the terminal beside me stated that there had been a systems failure. Once I got my bearings, I checked all the other pods. Everyone else had died. My friends, my neighbors, my... family. The scientists that had been working in the Vault also died. The Overseer’s computer explained that they’d never been given clearance to vacate the facility. Supplies had run out. I was able to activate the Vault seal using coding on this Pip-Boy that had been left behind. And found my way to Sanctuary, and, eventually, here.”

“You’ll understand, Initiate,” he began slowly, although his voice had softened somewhat, “if I have difficulty believing everything you’re saying. I’m not saying you’re wrong. All I’m saying is, if this is all true, then I appreciate your being so honest and straightforward with me. This isn’t the kind of thing a person jokes about. There isn’t much I can go on right now to validate the truth of your words, so you’ll understand if I am a little hesitant to give this perspective my full belief. However, know that if there is anything I can offer my assistance on if you require it, I will always be happy to support my team.”

“I… Thank you, Paladin Danse,” she said, unsure of where this currently put her within the squad. Even if he didn’t believe her fully, it was a relief to have finally at least told someone. “I’ll see to helping Haylen and Rhys with their assignments.”

“On your way, then. Ad victorium, Initiate,” he said nod.

“Ad victorium,” she responded promptly before leaving the room.

Paladin Danse returned back to his reports. His mouth pressed to a flat line in thought. That was… completely unexpected. His pencil hovered over the paperwork as his mind tried to make sense of the information he had just been presented with. After a moment of analysing the situation in his head, he made a few notes before resuming his previous duties:

_Gladen Reed: Initiate._

_Vault 111. Sanctuary. Cryostasis Experiment. VaultTec. Pre-war. Pip-Boy. 200 years._

_Note to_ _Investigate further. Verify findings._


	4. Missing Persons

“Nani ni shimasu ka?” Takahashi repeated, stirring his noodle pot.

Initiate Reed, Gladen, had picked up a couple of assignments from Knight Rhys and Scribe Haylen about a week and a half ago. Nothing really changed after her discussion with Paladin Danse. He treated her about the same as before. That familiar and respectful superior officer tone that spoke of his heavy military upbringing when he gave directions or clarified orders. Rhys was still giving her the cold shoulder, although Haylen had tried to explain it was simply how he protected his brothers and sisters in The Brotherhood. That made sense, as it had been Gladen’s impression all along. Still, she made an effort to try to talk to him. She probably would have had more luck teaching a Mirelurk to play poker than to make friends with Knight Rhys after that attempt.

Scribe Haylen was looking for pre-war technology after deciphered reports were given from HQ on possible locations of tech worth noting. Knight Rhys had asked her to ‘deal with’ an infestation of ghouls at a point of interest for The Brotherhood. It was as if he knew how much she detested feral ghouls and enjoyed seeing her grimace at the assignment. It didn’t appear that either of them knew about the conversation that had happened in the other room prior to the assignments, which made things a little easier at least.

Instead of heading right into the fray, the Vault survivor decided to stop in at Sanctuary and let them know what had transpired at the Cambridge Police Station. No sense in disappearing for weeks on end without an explanation and causing undue worry with the already jumpy settlers.

It was a relief to be home, even if it was just for a short stop. Preston had taken time to give her some great insight, and she was thankful for his perspective. He talked a bit more about what he knew of The Brotherhood, about the good and bad he had heard. Fortunately, he never pressured her either way. He instead made references to their own cause, a few settlements that could use a visit and assistance. Gladen had put their locations into her Pip-Boy to see what she could do.

They were thankful she was alright and that she was doing well on her own. They knew she was from the Vault, and sympathized with how difficult adapting could be, given the circumstances. Codsworth, of course, reminded them that he had also taken great lengths to watch over Ms. Reed on their adventures. He even stopped complaining about the dirt and grime that was gathering in his gearbox.

“Where are you heading off to now?” Mama Murphy had asked, sitting in her chair.

“I’m not sure, Mama Murphy. I need to resupply before I head off to some important assignments, then I’m not sure where we’ll be heading after that.”

“The sight has spoken to me, yes, it has, dear. Diamond City. You will find the answers you seek,” the old woman had rasped cryptically. Well, it was as good a hunch as any. Even if she was high on chems. Maybe one day they’d be able to convince her to give them up.

Sturges had given her directions after Gladen asked him about this place called Diamond City, confirming its location on her Pip-Boy. The nice thing about Sturges is he never really questioned anything anybody did. As long as it wasn’t hurting anybody else, he had no problem with whatever someone wanted to do.

“Keep to the alleys and keep it stealthy, young lady,” he’d said with his drawl. “Them areas been a source o’ fighting for many a year. Raiders, Super Mutants, them wild mongrels. You watch your back, ya? Ain’t no good gettin’ dead if you don’t hafta. ‘Specially since youra going off with only a fleabag to watch ya back.”

He hadn’t been joking. Once reaching city centre, it had been a whole new ballgame. The sound of bullets echoed down each street, barricades and warnings everywhere. Just when she thought she had reached Diamond City, a looming bag of meat would be right around the corner. _Nope, not dealing with Super Mutants today,_ she thought to herself as she carefully backed away.

Eventually, she’d found it.

And so Gladen sat in front of Takahashi, eating the surprisingly decent noodles that he was serving. It had been a cold, wet trek and it felt good to have something warm in her belly. It sure beat eating cold Cram with a fork in a collapsing building as she kept watch. Dogmeat had come with her on this trip. Codsworth was too… chatty for his own good for this kind of trip. Especially if she needed to utilize stealth. It had proven to be a good decision.

So far Diamond City had been interesting. A reporter named Piper had helped her get in, and caused a bit of a stir for doing so. Gladen had slipped away shortly after that. No sense in getting caught up with drama right away. Not until she had her supplies and was on her way at least.

Rumor was that there was a detective in town named Nick. Nick Valentine. He had a knack for finding people, and answers. Seemed like a decent enough guy. Nobody really had anything bad to say about him, which was actually surprising. Usually word on the street was some bad, some good, depending on a person’s perspective. Not Nick. Everyone seemed okay with him.

This place was overwhelming though. It was busy, like it had a life of its own. The citizens inside were jumpy, spooky, just like the settler’s back at Sanctuary. A few had noticed her but no one stopped to talk. Gladen was just thankful she’d decked herself out in armor she’d picked up over the past couple of days. That helped her blend in amongst the locals a little bit more convincingly. Only a few stole glances her way, probably just cautious of any new person around at all no matter what they looked like.

A detective with a knack for finding missing persons. Maybe her luck in this messed up world was taking a better turn. Maybe he could help her find Shaun. _Shaun._

A part of her wanted to frantically run the Commonwealth, searching every rock, tree, cave and building for her little boy, her baby. Fortunately, a stronger part of her mind overruled that motherly insanity. First, she didn’t know even one tenth of what was happening on the surface and she needed to be careful, or she’d end up dead too. She was of no use to anybody dead. Second, if anyone did know, chances are they wouldn’t just come out and say it. Third… she didn’t know how long she had been in cryostasis after they had shot Nate. It felt like just minutes, but what if it had been days, weeks, months… years? It could have been many years, in fact. Codsworth had said they were in the Vault for 200 years or so. What if…. What if they had taken Shaun after only a few years? What if they had shot Nate and taken Shaun after only a few years, leaving her frozen for another 198 years? What if he was grown now? What if he had already died of old age? What if the people who took him killed him too?

She rubbed at her eyes, groaning at her insufferable internal dialog. It was so hard to sleep these days. An hour or two at best.

Finishing her noodles, she’d ventured off to find Nick Valentine’s detective agency. One of the Diamond City guards was kind enough to point her in the right direction. He sported some pristine pre-war aviators. It was actually kind of nice seeing the little things that reminded her of home.

After a few wrong turns, Gladen found the place. A hole in the wall. Just like everything else in the Commonwealth these days. “Hello?” she called out as she opened the door to the detective agency. It was unlocked. Hopefully it meant the office was open and she wouldn’t be shot for entering.

“Oh look, another stray coming in from the rain. ‘Fraid you’re too late. Office is closed,” said a well-dressed lady pouring over some files. She’d been crying.

“Are you alright?” Gladen asked, trying not to sound too nosy.

“No, I’m sorry, you’ll have to leave,” the office woman said with an edge of frustration. She briskly closed a filing cabinet with a metallic slam.

“I didn’t come all this way just to get brushed off,” Gladen tried to press. This was her only lead.

“Well you can take a seat and wait until the next Armageddon, because the detective ain’t coming back. He’s gone missing.”

 _Fuck._ “Tell me what happened. Maybe I can help,” the Vault dweller switched tone, suddenly being thrown a curve ball. If there was ever a chance to get answers this might be her only shot.

Ellie sighed and explained to Gladen all about Skinny Malone and his gang of thugs. It wasn’t until she mentioned that they were holed up in some Vault that the Initiate tweaked a little on the inside. It was one thing trying to escape from a Vault. It was quite another thing to have to break back into one.

“Don’t worry, I’ll find him,” she’d said, voice developing an uncharacteristically hardened edge.

 _Tracking down a missing person so that they could help find a missing person._ The irony was not lost on Gladen. After checking her Pip-Boy for a map and getting some vague directions from Ms. Perkins, she ventured back out into the fucking rain.

 


	5. Who knew?

It turns out Nick was a synth. _Who knew?_

Nobody made mention of it, so Gladen naturally assumed he was a human. It was especially odd that he was living in Diamond City. There was absolutely no denying he was a synth, yet the city proclaimed to hate synths and muttered about distrust and hatred of an organization called The Institute. Yet they spoke highly of this synth whenever his name had come up. This world made less and less sense every damn day.

Vault 114 that Skinny Malone had been occupying was hidden away in the local subway system with its confusing series of twists, turns, not to mention collapsed tunnels that made it almost impossible to find. Gladen honestly didn’t spend much time investigating anything underground here other than to find out if Nick, who she believed to be human at the time, was alright. Maybe one day she would investigate more about VaultTec. One day. Until then, this was her primary target.

Hopefully Haylen and Rhys didn’t ask her what took her so long to get back to them. How would she explain that one? _‘Sorry it took me a while! Just had to help a detective synth hiding out at Diamond City with the drawl of an old-world cop escape from a gang of thugs that had kidnapped him for getting too nosy and stashed him in a Vault so that I can maybe have a hope at finding my kidnapped son.’_ Yeah, _that_ would go over well.

Luckily, Malone and his crew hadn’t killed Nick. That was a nice turn of events. Plus, Nick had a great sense of humor. Gladen took a liking to this fellow right away, synth or not.

Nick had lead the way out, but not before stumbling into Malone and his crew. Plus the little whiny tramp that had knocked the poor synth around a bit the past few weeks with a baseball bat. _Classy._ Normally Gladen was one for ending things on neutral ground, each coming to a compromise and going their own way. Unfortunately, things didn’t play out that way. The tramp’s whiny little voice cut through the senses of Malone like an irritating knife through butter, and they all turned.

Gladen had escaped unscathed, taking out two of the thugs and peppering Malone with a few rounds. The crazy lady had taken a swing at her with a baseball bat. Automatic 10mm rounds put her down right quick, and Malone shortly after.

Killing raiders and super mutants was one thing. Taking out people was something of a different sense. Sure, they were ‘bad people’, but nobody was entirely ‘good’ anymore either.

Gladen decided she probably wouldn’t come back and investigate Vault 114. Not after all that. Better to let what happened here lay to rest.

The trip back to Diamond City was it's own kind of adventure. Super Mutants, Raiders, wild dogs. It was helpful to have Nick along, who knew these streets like the back of his synthetic hand by now, but they still had to fight their way through a few scuffles. Turns out Nick was right handy to have along. Quick, precise, and deadly with his pistol. They skirted around the Super Mutant bases as best they could, not wanting to stir up that nest of anger without some proper gear and equipment. Eventually they found their way back to the shiny city gates, and even the guards seemed happy to see Nick unhurt. 

A city that hates synths happy to see one come back. Seriously, did this place make any sense?

“Alright. Let’s get down to business,” Nick said as they all settled back into his office. Ellie was practically smitten to see her employer returned safe and sound, if a little battered. She had even rewarded Gladen with a few caps. Nice girl. “Take a seat, make yourself comfortable. When you’re trying to find someone that’s gone missing, the devil is in the details. Tell me everything you can… no matter how painful it might be.” Nick’s tone was sympathetic, yet direct. They’d chatted quite a bit on the walk back. Gladen learned more about the synth, his home in Diamond City, his occupation. He, in turn, learned a bit more about Ms. Reed and what had led her to him. His sense of humor lightened the mood significantly. No wonder everyone liked Nick.

It was a long night as they poured over her memories of the events in the Vault. Nick asked excellent questions. They went over things multiple times to ensure nothing had been missed. Ellie jotted down notes with a practiced hand, offering feedback whenever the detective touched on previous cases he had worked on.

By the end of the conversation, the synth had a hunch. It wasn’t much, but it was a hunch. An old hunch, trail fairly cold. Still, it was better than nothing. He had seen a child that was with a man named Kellogg. The child was about ten years old, and they’d disappeared a short while back.

Ten years old. Maybe there was still hope that Shaun might still be alive. It wasn’t much, but it was better than wandering around the entire Commonwealth calling out his name. Seems Kellogg had even stayed in Diamond City for a while. Maybe luck was starting to turn back on their side. Off they went, Dogmeat proving to have been a great choice to bring along on this particular adventure as things escalated quickly after that.


	6. Return to Cambridge

Initiate Reed threw open the door of the Cambridge Police Station with a slam. The wind had gusted behind her as she made her way inside, announcing her presence with a resounding _BANG_ that echoed through the station. Still, it fit her slightly sour mood. A radstorm growled outside, announcing its movement along the Commonwealth with equally resounding booms that brought with it both flashes of lightning and sent Geiger counters crackling with alarm.

Her Power Armor was slightly damaged and in need of repair. It was the suit she had found while aiding in the Minutemen’s escape when she was new to the surface those few weeks back. It was also the first time she had ever encountered a Deathclaw. The chest piece on the torso still showed signs of the past altercation, three half foot long scrapes along the surface of the steel, easily a quarter-inch deep. Recent damages had come from the three tasks she had involved herself with. One, obtaining the Haptic Drive from Medford Memorial Hospital for Scribe Haylen, which proved to be a surprisingly difficult task. Second, clearing out a ghoul-infested site of interest for Knight Rhys, which left her covered in irradiated blood after coming across a horrific creature that she simply nicknamed “the Glowing One”. Third… Nick and her had tracked down a man named Kellogg, guarded by synths, held up in a building riddled with offensive barriers like turrets and explosives. And in the end, he’d confirmed that he took Shaun, that he was working with the Institute, which had taken Shaun, and that he would never cooperate with them.

Gladen had blown him and his synths up with a Fatman nuke, nearly killing herself in the process.

So to say she was in a bit of a sour mood was putting it lightly.

It was when she entered and saw guns drawn on her that she quickly found herself switching back to a calmer mindset once more, eyebrows rising and hands coming up innocently. _Shit,_ she remembered. She was still wearing her Power Armor. They had no idea who she was. Paladin Danse stood with a laser rifle in firing position, Haylen at his side and Rhys to the far right behind the front desk.

“Sorry, sorry!” her voice crackled slightly through the audio relay inside the helmet, slowly using one hand to reach behind her head and release the helmet coupler. Her other hand stayed up submissively, making sure not to make any sudden movements. With a hiss the helmet released and Gladen pulled it off her head, shaking her matted hair away from her face.

“Initiate Reed!” Paladin Danse said with a mixture of surprise and relief as he lowered his weapon.

“I forgot I was still wearing this thing,” Gladen explained quickly. “I’m sorry if I startled anybody.”

Was that a brief chuckle from Paladin Danse?

“It’s alright, Initiate. We’re just not used to seeing you in Power Armor. One can never be too careful in the Commonwealth,” he said with an approving nod. “We’re glad to see that you’ve returned safely. I presume you were successful in completing the appointed tasks from Scribe Haylen and Knight Rhys?”

The Initiate nodded. “Challenging but accomplished, sir,” she said, tone more confident and assertive than when she had first set foot in this police station. She’d learned a lot about herself over the past two and a half weeks. Amongst other things.

“Outstanding,” Paladin Danse said as he put away his laser rifle. He genuinely looked pleased. “Report to Haylen and Rhys with your findings.”

Gladen saluted with a hand to chest and did as she was instructed. Honestly, it was a nice change to be given some direction. While she was great at making her own decisions, it had been a tiring experience to find out about Kellogg and it was a nice change to not have to think about the next step for once.

Scribe Haylen smiled as the Initiate provided the Haptic Drive to her. “Hopefully it didn’t prove to challenging for you, Initiate,” she said cheerfully as she carefully inspected the old-world tech.

“Nothing I couldn’t handle, Scribe Haylen,” the Vault dweller responded, not in a cocky way, but just in a matter-of-fact tone.

“This piece is in excellent condition. Perhaps we should send you on missions more often. I’ll pour over my intel. Maybe we can find something else for you to track down,” the scribe said hopefully. “Thank you, Initiate. Come see me later, I may have another mission for you by then.”

“Ad victorium,” came the traditional response.

As Haylen turned away to return to her room and write up the required paperwork needed when acquiring new items, Gladen hesitated. Next she had to speak to Rhys. Her mood was still a bit sour, but more tired than anything. There were still repairs to complete after this, and no doubt a report that would need completing. Might as well get it over with. It figures that the Knight was mostly out of earshot of the others now, tinkering with a piece of equipment that the Initiate wasn’t able to identify.

“Knight Rhys,” she said, trying her best to maintain a neutral tone as she approached.

He didn’t even look up. “Alright, out with it… What’s your game?”

“Oh give me a break…” she muttered to herself, sighing heavily. Must he do this right now? “I just can’t win with you.”

“Win? This isn’t some kind of game that you can just decide to play and then leave,” he said scathingly, looking up from his work with brows furrowed. “What, you get what you want and then you’ll just hit the road?”

Gladen barely noticed that her hands had closed into fists. “The Brotherhood might be the best chance I’ll ever have to find my kidnapped son,” she spat right back, voice still low but tone edged with caution. “I just finished finding out who took him. That he was taken by some place called The Institute. Then his kidnapper attacked me and I was forced to kill him before I got any answers. This isn’t some game to me. I am taking this more seriously than I have ever taken anything before. If that’s not good enough for you, then perhaps it will never be enough to convince you otherwise about me.”

Knight Rhys stared with wide eyes. He hadn’t been expecting that.

“College Square has been cleared of feral ghouls,” she said flatly, not giving him a chance to respond. “If you have anywhere else that requires assistance, I’m ready for the task. Until then, I have gear that needs repair before we continue our mission. Am I free to go, Knight Rhys?”

He stared at her for a moment before giving a quick nod, “Uh… Yeah. That… sounds good. Thank you?”

“Ad victorium,” she saluted promptly.

Turning on a heel, she paced off towards the rear of the police station. Inside the Power Armor was hot, sweaty and had started to rub her the wrong way after this many miles. It would be an ideal time to sit and work on her long checklist of things to tweak and repair. It would also help if the gear she wore underneath it were better suited to life inside the armor. Her current gear was still a bit of an assortment. It worked, but it wasn’t ideal. Perhaps she would ask Scribe Haylen or Paladin Danse about that later. For now, she was just tired. Mentally exhausted. Emotionally burnt out.

It was cool inside the building, at least. The radstorm outside continued to growl every now and then. They seemed to be growing more frequent lately. Perhaps the world still had some kind of seasonal transition of sorts? It was something to perhaps ponder about later.

Couplers spun open with a hiss and the hinges groaned as the release was pressed to exit the Power Armor. Its fusion core ran nearly silently, save for perhaps the slightest of hums that was lost amidst the thunder outside. Initiate Reed practically melted out of the armor, holding onto its internal components as her feet touched solid ground. Slowly she was getting more adept at operating this piece of equipment. Like anything, it simply took time and effort. Eventually it might even feel like a second skin. The important thing was, it kept its occupants safe from harm and surprise onslaughts of bullets. Still, it took its toll. It still required a lot of human energy to operate in the way of movement and effort.

Gladen sank into a seated position on the floor, knees bent up in front of her. Elbows came to rest on her legs as she rubbed her face. _This fucking world_ , she thought to herself bitterly. _Always two steps forward, one step fucking back._

* * *

 

With an exhausted body and a racing mind, the idea of sleep was both a beautiful idea and an unlikely event. The watch for the evening had already been sorted between her squad stationed at the police compound before she arrived back, so she couldn’t opt to volunteer for that. Plus, it was doubtful that Paladin Danse would approve it. If there was one thing he did notably well it was look after his squad. Perhaps she would wake up early and put together breakfast for the team. After all, Preston had insisted she take along plenty of resources from Sanctuary’s garden so that she wouldn’t get stuck eating molerat on a stick. There was plenty left to share around.

The Vault dweller instead busied herself with temporarily removing the majority of her protective armour. If she wasn’t on watch, no sense in needlessly traipsing around in full gear. Besides, if anything were to happen, the Power Armor was just a jump away. It would also give her gear a chance to dry off after all that. It had rained a fair bit when she had been traveling Diamond City, then sweating as she took her Power Armor to face off with Kellogg. It hadn’t had a chance to dry out fully in a while.

Most of the light available in the station was in the main room. Sure there was some natural light too, but not as the sun went down. It was dim, but workable. After some time had passed and she found herself truly unable to sleep, she rummaged around in her equipment bag for a few tools that she kept handy. Knight Rhys had taken first watch and was outside. Scribe Haylen and Paladin Danse were sleeping, so the station was remarkably quiet. No big repairs; Those would be saved for another day. However, there were a few minor things that needed to be adjusted.

The servo located in the right shoulder was sticky and made movement tricky sometimes. It still moved, sure, but it wasn’t as fluid as its left-hand counterpart. With screwdriver in hand, Gladen removed the steel plating from the section, putting it down as quietly as she could despite how heavy it was. Pip-Boy light on-arm, she navigated and analyzed the area.

Codsworth had been immensely helpful for assisting in the basics of its routine care. After all, he was similarly composed. The wiring and electronics were the tricky part, best left to someone who knew what they were doing, but basic maintenance was fairly straightforward.

Gladen connected her Pip-Boy to the equipment and ran a diagnostic selected for the right arm attachment. It came back lights green for operational quality and signal relay. She made a face. Selected a few buttons on her portable computer and asked it to run a basic movement calibration. The servo in the unit whirred gently, then groaned as the arm moved upwards of its own accord. She hit the ‘Pause Sequence’ button and leaned in for a closer look.

“Seriously?” she muttered to herself out loud. With a sigh, she climbed down from looking into the frame and picked up a pair of needle-nose pliers from her makeshift workspace. Again she hopped up and located the servo.

A piece of shrapnel was sitting at the edge of the gearbox relay, stuck into the nearby housing and occasionally catching the servo as it moved. With a delicate yet insistent tug of the stray bit of metal, Gladen was able to remove it without further damage to her equipment. She stifled an _‘Ah hah!’_ , least she wake up the rest of her squad. _No, wait. Ad victorium_. That would be the proper announcement.

She selected the: ‘Resume Sequence’ option on her Pip-Boy, still attached to the Power Armor. The servo whirled once more back to life, this time no hitch or groan as it moved freely. Gladen rubbed her own sore shoulder. That would make it easier to move, and less straining. No wonder she was tired.

_One thing done, at least,_ she thought to herself. With tired hands and an awake mind, the armor plating that covered the shoulder unit was once again put in its proper place and secured. She’d double-check it in the morning, make sure everything was still running smoothly.

Time in the station passed quietly at night. She operated mostly with her Pip-Boy light, not wanting to wake anybody by doing anything more. The internal leg support frames were adjusted ¼” upwards and locked into this new setting. Hopefully now her stride feel more natural when walking in the metallic beast. The internal portion of her visor was thoroughly cleaned and checked for any defects that could threaten her vision, or her eyes itself. Part of her wanted to clean out the feral gunk that had cemented itself to the crevices of the left power hand, but that might best be a job done outside.


	7. A Few Minor Repairs

Danse himself hadn’t been able to sleep much that night either. The Paladin usually had trouble sleeping. Not because of nightmares so much. More so because of a busy mind, always analyzing tactical points of information gathered throughout the day or from before. The long term. The short term. The now. The later. Something was always going on, and as senior office, it fell mostly to him.

Shortly after Scribe Haylen had fallen asleep and Knight Rhys had dutifully gone to his post, Danse had noticed a dim light moving in the other room. They had all assumed the weary wanderer had turned in early for the night, but that proved to be incorrect. The dim light had stayed on for quite some time. Curiosity got the better of the senior office as he heard the familiar metallic clicks and taps of a piece of equipment being worked and got up to investigate.

_Take care of your equipment and it will take care of you_ , he was fond of saying. Had he ever said that in front of the new Initiate? He couldn’t recall, but didn’t think he had.

So engrossed with her work, she didn’t notice him standing just outside the doorway. Then again, there were only a few lights still on in the police station by this point, so most of it was cast in some type of shadow. He also wasn’t currently in his Power Armor either, so it made being tactically silent that much easier.

The Paladin watched her work for a while. It seems she kept a toolkit with her, modest but effective. The Pip-Boy was able to run basic diagnostic as well. _Interesting._ The Initiate wasn’t brash and didn’t rush. She didn’t even really appear to be frustrated at any point. Many new recruits, when faced with something as complex as Power Armor, could easily get frustrated and deterred when things didn’t resolve as quickly as they had hoped. Initiate Reed seemed to have a deeper respect for what she was doing. At one point he heard her whispering to herself:

“What was it Cods had said…?” she rubbed her forehead with a spare hand, the other holding an adjustable wrench, and closed her eyes as if willing herself to recall. “… the internal on-board reaction relay protocol should be re-calibrated after a… was it a fall? Or an explosion…? Both? How could you fall and explode…? It can’t be both. Maybe…?”

Tri-claw marks that ran deep on the front of the chest piece might give a hint as to why it appeared such a valuable asset to her. Maybe she understood how much it could change things in battle, and save ones’ life. Initiates that moved through the ranks in The Brotherhood received Power Armor when appointed as a Knight. She’d obtained this one through other means. Maybe it had already saved her life before.

Taking a break, she sat back from her work, chewing ideally on a piece of brahman meat that she had smoked and dried herself back at Sanctuary. It didn’t taste that bad. Did anything really taste _good_ anymore, though?

“Permission to intrude, Initiate Reed?” Paladin Danse said, unintentionally startling the young 200-some year old recruit.

A tired, apologetic half-smile touched the young woman’s features fleetingly as she gestured with a welcoming hand to the floor beside her. “Of course, Paladin Danse,” she said softly, smile fading into a tired mask. She was still speaking quietly, although above a whisper now. “I’m sorry, did I wake you? I was trying to keep quiet.”

Danse eased himself to sit down beside her. It was nice to not have someone jump to attention when he addressed them. Of course, anywhere else in The Brotherhood, it could have been taken as disrespect, but he was willing to overlook it for now. “No, no. You didn’t wake me,” he replied, looking at what she had been working on. “I couldn’t sleep much either. What are you doing?”

“There were a few things in need of minor repair and calibration. It’s been a long couple of weeks, and I’ve been on the move a lot. Hadn’t had time nor a secure place to really take care of it without risking my safety,” she said, also looking at her handy work.

“Were the assignments tasked to you by Haylen and Rhys… Were you adequately prepared for them? Was the intel sufficient?” he asked, the senior officer tone touching his words just a bit. He didn’t want to openly ask if it had been too much for her, while at the same time wanting to ensure that there weren’t any flaws in their protocols.

Gladen shook her head slightly, shoulder-length copper-red hair falling on either side, “Rhys and Haylen provided sufficient intel. I knew I was going into a challenge. I was careful.”

Paladin Danse nodded, pleased to hear that. “What did you encounter?”

“Feral ghouls, mostly. Raiders too, along the way at least. I had to stop off at Diamond City to resupply at one point, as I was running low on ammo.”

“Smart move. Diamond City is a large settlement with good supply lines and traders. It was a wise decision to go there for ammunition,” he said approvingly. Normally he didn’t encourage his squad to needlessly expose themselves to danger though. Settlements could be tricky places.

He noticed that Initiate Reed was offering some of the brahman meat that she was currently eating. Gratefully the senior officer took a piece, although he took a moment to look it over before trying it. It wasn’t bad. He gestured towards the torso. The claw marks. “What happened there?”

“That was from before,” she said, thinking about possibly just leaving that story be. After a moment, she went on to explain: “Shortly after I left the Vault, a distress call from nearby Concord came over my Pip-Boy. It was riddled with static, short-range. Settlers. They were calling for help,” Gladen said, pulling her knees up towards herself as she looked up at the armor. “Most of them hadn’t made it. They were trying to find a secure location to call their own but had to detour due to raiders. Trapped in a building, they had no way out. I managed to find my way into the building and to the survivors. We started talking plans, how to escape. Surges comes up and tells me: ‘There’s a crashed vertibird on the roof. Might still have its payload of a Power Armor and maybe even some weapons!’”

“What did you do?” Paladin Danse asked, now fully looking at his Initiate with interest.

“Well, I found my way to the roof, and there it was. A full set of Power Armor. Perfectly intact. Maybe a bit rusty, but it wasn’t functionally damaged. There had been a power generator in the basement of the building we were trapped in, which had a viable fusion core. I jumped in, ripped the minigun off of the side of the vertibird, checked that it still worked and jumped off the building.”

It was strange to hear Paladin Danse laugh. It was a short laugh, quiet as Scribe Haylen was still sleeping, but a genuine laugh nonetheless. “You? You jumped off of a building in a suit if Power Armor, using a minigun ripped off of a vertibird…? Somehow, I’m not surprised.”

Gladen actually smiled. “Yeah, I guess that sounds kind of ridiculous when you say it like that. The raiders had no idea what was going on. As I opened fire with the minigun, they all scattered and took off. A few went down, most fled,” the smile had faltered, and faded. “They were actually kind of lucky. A monster took us by surprise. It was like the stuff of nightmares. Tall, huge, with claws half a foot long. It towered over us. It was armored, or just had a thick hide, or something. I turned the minigun on it. The bullets lit it up and it screamed. Despite the hundreds of rounds, it walked right through them. Right up to me. The gun clicked empty and suddenly the world tilted. I landed a dozen yards away. It was soon on me, clawing at my chest, trying desperately to rip the suit apart.

“My 10mm pistol was still at my side. I pulled it out of desperation and fired blindly. I caught it in the eye, and it roared. Its chest was riddled with holes. I had wounded it with the minigun, but it was just so… so unrelenting. I took aim at its head a few more times. I didn’t even notice that it was crushing me, that I couldn’t breathe. That’s when I heard more gunshots. The settlers were taking aim themselves. It turned to roar at them, and Preston caught a lucky shot right in the empty eye socket and into its skull. The creature crumpled. Dead. We’d killed it.

“’A Deathclaw’, they told me. Yeah, no _shit_. It tore the suit up pretty bad. We had to replace a lot of parts that were damaged. The chestpiece… well… that was just cosmetic actually. So I left it, for now,” she said almost distantly. Halfway through the story she had looked away, recalling the scene in great detail, barely noticing that she had tensed up. Gladen turned to look back at her senior officer, forcing herself to take a deep breath and relax.

Paladin Danse was looking at the floor, brow furrowed slightly, and for a moment Reed wondered if he’d even been listening. The look he gave her after a moment proved that he had. “I’m… sorry that you had to go through that. I can’t imagine how… frightening that kind of situation must have been to a civilian,” he spoke softly, sympathetically. It wasn’t Paladin Danse, senior officer, that was talking now. It was just Danse. Someone just trying to survive out here like everybody else. “Even battle-hardened veterans I know wouldn’t willingly go hand-to-hand with a Deathclaw. Most people don’t survive an encounter like that out in the Commonwealth. And yet, even after all that, you didn’t run and hide somewhere. You still kept going. Hell, you even decided to help us. I can’t tell if you’re brave, or just foolish.”

The last statement didn’t come across as criticism, more astonishment than anything. Initiate Reed wasn’t exactly sure what to say next. “Maybe a bit of both,” she decided on, shrugging slightly as an afterthought. “I don’t know my way around this world. Everything is so… different from what I know, what I grew up with. I learn new things every damn day in this place. It’s hard, sir. Harder than I ever dreamed it would be. Maybe reminding people that there’s still some good out there, still someone who is willing to help them when they ask for it, it’ll help change things for the better. I don’t know anything else, Paladin. It’s just in my blood to help people, if I can.”

Danse nodded in agreement. The Commonwealth could corrupt people so easily, defeat them before they even started. And here, this woman, apparently from a Vault, frozen for years and thrust into this world without any idea of what to expect… she hadn’t lost her humanity. He felt grateful to have her here. “All we can do is the best we can, soldier,” he said, standing up, “each and every day. I’m proud to call you a member of this squad. We’re… lucky that you found your way to us. I can’t imagine what would have happened if you hadn’t decided to help us that day. Things would have turned out differently, and I’m not sure there would have been a happy ending.” He touched his fist to his chest. “Ad victorium, Initiate. Get some rest.”

“Ad victorium, sir,” she responded, returning the salute.

She watched as he left. After everything, maybe here wasn’t such a bad place to be after all.


	8. Brotherhood Welcome

The report flickered on the screen, lines of texting rolling across the green-black tint of the terminal monitor as it relayed the important information Paladin Danse had requested. A report had gone to his superiors about the identification of a newly discovered Vault near Sanctuary. As old-world tech went, Vaults were of great interest to The Brotherhood. A separate recon team had been dispatched for that investigation exclusively.

 

Target location: Vault 111  
  
Mission: Recon   
Interest: Old-world technology, data recovery  
Source: Internal discovery by Paladin Danse  
Report:

Confirmed location of Vault 111. Seal to the Vault had been compromised recently. No raider activity noted. Internal sweeps confirmed presence of radroaches. No survivors. Detailed sweeps confirmed that Vault 111 was not a community survival vault. Immense amounts of pre-war technology identified. Much of it undamaged. Suggest additional Scribes to document thoroughly. Large storage areas filled with what appear to be suspended animation cyropods. Many non-operational. Data reclaimed from local terminals suggests catastrophic system failure. Loss of life: 90% at the time of malfunction. Reports within the smaller terminals corrupted beyond decryption. Unsure of exact reason for the system failure. Recommend back-up of systems and further analysis at the Prydwen with more advanced diagnostics software.

Requested data acquisition: Confirmed.

“Smith, Gladen (maiden: Reed): Female, 27, Caucasian, green eyes, red hair. Cryostasis initiated 2077. Cryostasis status: Unknown.”

Also identified:

“Smith, Nate: Male, 30, Caucasian, blue eyes, brown hair. Cyostasis initiated 2077. Cryostasis status: Interrupted / Compromised.  
Smith, Shaun: Male, infant, Caucasian, blue eyes, brown hair. Cryostasis initiated 2077. Cryostasis status:  
Interrupted / Compromised.”

Further investigation found (1) Smith, Nate – Deceased by gunshot to the head. (1) Smith, Shaun – Missing. (1) Smith, Gladen – Missing.

Investigation of other cryopods: No survivors.

Initial Report: Concluded

Follow-up Report: To be completed after full diagnostics with complete itemized list of reclaimed tech

Ad Victorium.

 

Paladin Danse sat back from the terminal for a time, lost in thought. He reread the report a few times just to make sure he committed the crucial information to memory, should he need to refer to it in the future. While this didn’t prove full credibility to his Initiate, it was impossible to deny that something had happened in Vault 111. It seemed unlikely that Gladen Smith, now referring to herself as Gladen Reed, would have broken into a Vault and simply left with a new identity based on what she had found within.

Unlikely, but not impossible. Stranger things had happened in the Commonwealth, after all.

With a few taps of the keyboard, Paladin Danse logged off from the report. He wasn’t sure if this made things clearer now with his new Initiate or if this just made things that much more difficult to understand.

* * *

 

Words couldn’t describe the pride and excitement he felt in his chest as the vertibird made its final approach to the Cambridge Police Station. Such an amazing feat of technology. Sure, there were other technological wonders that The Brotherhood had uncovered over the years that were vastly superior, but this one was a piece of tech he personally found great affinity for. There was something about riding over the Commonwealth in a vertibird… Seeing everything from an entirely new perspective. It somehow looked… cleaner from up here. Most potential. Maybe even hopeful. From the air, all the small things that made this world unsavoury disappeared for a short time.

“Initiate Reed,” he called out over the din of the vertiblades.

Gladen, decked only in her fatigues and basic patchwork of armor, crossed the roof of the police station to join him. The only vertibird she had seen recently was the pre-war crash-site in Concord. It was impressive to see one operating at its full potential out here.

After dishing out breakfast to the squad, composed of dried mutfruit, cooked corn and fancy lad cakes that she had fashioned into some kind of porridge, Paladin Danse had informed her that his superiors had requested their presence aboard the Prydwen. It was a massive airship, apparently. Headquarters for The Brotherhood in this part of the Commonwealth, as well as the place her senior officer called home. It was a great honor. She’d stared at Paladin Danse after he gave her the news. He seemed excited for the expedition. _Did they know about her?_ There were no secrets in The Brotherhood, she knew, but she hoped that news of a Vault dweller amongst their ranks wasn’t cause for disfavour.

“You’ll be meeting with Elder Maxson,” he had gone on to explain. “He is the leader of The Brotherhood of Steel, and has well earned his title. You’d do best to be mindful of what you say when you meet him.” There was an underlying note of caution in those last words. Initiate Reed made sure to remember that.

She had had no idea that they would be transported there via the air, however. No wonder her senior officer had been looking forward to their departure.

The din of the aircraft was loud and the air moved violently around them. The Initiate had left her Power Armor in the station for now, as there’d be no need for it once they arrived at the Prydwen. She hopped up first, following Paladin Danse’s instructions and positioning herself close to the mini gun. A quick glance at it confirmed it was the exact same model that she had utilized in her Deathclaw stand-off. The familiar thudding of her superior’s footsteps fell in line behind her as he boarded the aircraft as well. As usual, he wasn’t about to leave his Power Armor behind.

_After all, how would anybody recognize him without it?_ She mused silently as she flashed him a small but excited smile.

A small hand gripped the steel of the aircraft as they suddenly lurched skyward. She braced herself against the sudden movement. The earth beneath them smoothly slipped away and the buildings began to look like toys as they climbed in altitude over the city of Cambridge. Any people below began looking like tiny insects, if they could even be seen at all.

Reed’s hair flipped about in the turbulence of the wind as she looked out over the world as it was now. From the ground it had certainly changed. Up here… up here, it didn’t look so bad. Different, yes, but the horrors were too small to notice. The air seemed to be more fresh. She felt like she could really breathe up here.

“What’s on your mind, Initiate?” Paladin Danse called out over the din of the aircraft rotors. He was half looking at her, half glancing out towards the world laid out before them.

“It’s so… different from up here,” she almost had to shout back. “Everything has changed so much.”

“It’s a different world up here,” he agreed. “You can’t see all the filth, all the grim, all the bad that has polluted everything. It’s nice to take a step back and look at everything as a whole sometimes.”

“That’s why we’re here, with The Brotherhood,” he continued after a moment. “We want to make the Commonwealth a better place. By working together and cleansing the world of abominations, maybe we can start to repair the damages. Make this place livable again. I like to imagine what this place must have looked like before the Great war.”

Gladen Reed was silent for a few moments as they came over the city core. Buildings had collapsed either from time or from the force when the bombs fell, others standing simply as frames of their former glory. Everything was grey, or red with rust. The beams that had been left exposed by the blasts made some of the buildings look more like concrete skeletons than once historical achievements of human engineering.

The vertibird banked away as a few stray rounds flew their way from a building to their left. Super mutants were on the roof, shaking their weapons and no doubt shouting obscenities towards The Brotherhood aircraft. The aircraft quickly moved on, not remotely phased by the brief attack.

“It used to be beautiful, sir,” she responded in just a normal voice, the words almost lost to the wind as her eyes scanned the skyline. With a free hand she fiercely wiped away the few stray tears that threatened to creep down her cheek. If Paladin Danse had seen them, he didn’t ask about them. If he ever did, she would just blame it on the wind.

* * *

 

Well that was unexpected. _Knight._ Appointed to the rank of Knight within just, _what was it, five weeks, maybe a couple of days_ , since joining The Brotherhood? Provided with a full set of T-60 Power Armor from their resources? Given a designated spot aboard the Prydwen to rest and store her gear while on missions? Plus access to their weaponry stores, doctor and one of their best engineers in case of any catastrophic problems with her Power Armor? Overwhelming felt like just a vague description for the rolling emotions she was feeling inside as she walked the metal decks of the airship. Unnecessary was another feeling that came to mind. Soldiers worked their entire lives trying to make rank in any type of military outpost. They’d appointed her in what must have been record time. It left her feeling rather lost, not sure what to think.

Paladin Danse was beaming, although for any who didn’t really know him it may have been hard to tell. He always wore such a professional expression, but she could tell. Was he standing a little bit taller as well? It would make sense. He was a senior officer aboard one of the most technologically advanced piece of equipment known to the Commonwealth while surrounded by exclusively his peers and one of his recruits had just climbed the ranks at an unheard of speed. Yeah, he was probably standing a little bit taller.

“Go and meet with everyone,” he had said in his straight-forward, officer tone. “Once you’re done, I’ll meet you in Bay 3 and we’ll get your Power Armor calibrated for your use.”

“Yes, sir,” she responded with a snapping salute to the chest.

It wasn’t like her to play up the soldier type role, jumping to attention, not questioning superiors… but this wasn’t the time nor the place for her to really be herself. Besides, word travels quickly within The Brotherhood, and frankly, she didn’t want to make Paladin Danse look bad on her first visit here. He was her sponsor. His reputation was tied with hers. Paladin Danse even raised the slightest of eyebrows at her change of tone and body language now that they were aboard the ship, but didn’t question it. _He’s smart enough to figure it out,_ she justified internally. _Besides, he changed his tone and posture the moment we set foot aboard._

One thing was for sure; People here were passionate about their work within The Brotherhood. They’d bleed for it, die for it. Yet they were just regular people, like her, like Danse. People who had come together for the greater good, people that believed in making a difference. Frankly, Initiate… _Knight_ Reed enjoyed the company of all these strangers. They were good people. And they didn’t shoot her on sight. So it was a warm welcome all around.

Never one to be nervous meeting people, she wandered the airship and made time to chat with a variety of folks and introduce herself. First was the doctor, who quizzed her about the strangest things. Sleeping with creatures of the Commonwealth? _Like, what, feral ghouls?_ The concept immediately brought the memory of how they smelled back to her. No, none of that was going on anytime soon. Fortunately, she passed his little initial exam, although he’d made quite a few notes during their brief interaction. Next was Proctor Quinlan, the heart of the data, records and old-world analysis. They chatted a bit about old-world tech, a few pleasantries, an invitation to help on research division runs and a request for any technical documentation she came across. That shouldn’t be too hard. He didn’t ask her about any pre-war intel or matters about tech of note within the Vault. _Had Paladin Danse not reported her details about that to his superiors?_ Or perhaps it was just considered poor manners to talk about such things in the open? She’d have to ask him later.

A friendly Scribe helped her pick out something to eat from the mess hall, informing her it was such a pleasure to meet the newest Knight. Gladen smiled and thanked her for her kind words and warm welcome. This wasn’t the kind of attention she was used to. In Diamond City, they had all but pulled their guns on her. Here, well… Everyone was practically family.

Finishing her snack, she made her way to the rear of the Prydwen where they kept the Power Armors in their maintenance frames. The workshop was… marvelous. Tools of every sort. Diagnostic equipment Bolts, screws, nuts, servos, gears, relays, transmitters, couplers. Codsworth might have fainted had he laid his eyes upon it. Knight Reed paused in front of the wall of Power Armors, realizing the shape was familiar to her. It was the same model that Paladin Danse wore.

“Beautiful,” a voice made her jump as she stood in front of Unit #3, the T-60 Power Armour designated to her care by Elder Maxson. Strange, she hadn’t heard Paladin Danse sneak up on her. Maybe because everybody’s footsteps around here rang in a metallic way and his didn’t really stand out here that much. The entire ship was mostly metal, after all, and there were footsteps everywhere.

“What do you think?” he asked, gesturing to the Power Armor. “A fine piece of equipment right there. I know you’ll appreciate it. Since you’re familiar with the T-51, I look forward to hearing your perspective on the differences between that piece of equipment and this more advanced model. You might be pleasantly surprised with some of the upgrades that this model features when compared to previous models.”

Reed couldn’t help but smile. Everyone here had put her in a great mood since arriving. Especially since she had been a bundle of nerves when addressing Elder Maxson just shortly before. If ever there was a definition for ‘imposing figure’ that man certainly fit that bill and left her nerves a little rattled.

“It’s in such good condition too,” Knight Reed agreed. To be honest, she felt a little intimidated by this model. It was certainly more advanced. Larger too. The T-51 also seemed to be a bit more basic in its internalized components and operating systems. The T-60 was unfamiliar territory for her.

“I know you’ll do just fine, Knight,” the Paladin said reassuringly, almost as if reading her mind. “If you have any questions about your equipment or Power Armor, I’m always more than happy to give you a hand and walk you through it. You didn’t come highly recommended for promotion without due cause. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, soldier. I know you’ll do the Brotherhood, and me, proud.”

He put a Power Armoured hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze of confidence. “Come on, I’ll show you to your bunk. Then you can spend the rest of the day getting familiar with the Prydwen and its crew. Tomorrow we’ll go over details of our upcoming mission.”


	9. A Gentle Nudge

“Permission to speak freely, sir?”

“Go ahead, Haylen,” Paladin Danse said, glancing up from his meal to look at the Scribe.

They’d been journeying out here for several weeks now, going on months, finishing up tasks assigned to them from HQ. It had been mostly Paladin Danse and Knight Reed for the majority of the missions assigned on the outreaches, although some had required a mash-up of different recon teams. Occasionally Reed had gone out on her own, following up with certain matters as requested, while Danse often checked back in with the Prydwen periodically to connect with his senior officers about where the Brotherhood stood in the Commonwealth. It had been quite the whirlwind of events these past couple of months.

Clearing out more ghouls than they could recall, spending nights walking through the darkness in search of a safe place to rest for the night, tagging and collecting valuable technology from all over the map. Their mission’s had taken them all over the Commonwealth, from the inner core to the outskirts near the Glowing Sea, all the way to the Northern quarters, where Raiders and Super mutants seemed to appear as if by magic. No two assignments had been alike.

Still, it had been pleasant for the most part. Nothing they couldn’t handle. Save for the fact that the Institute was still an elusive subject, no solid intel or data being found that would put them any closer to finding it. If they hadn’t faced off with synths before, Danse was tempted to determine that all of this was just some made up story, meant to scare children and keep stories interesting around the camp fire at the end of the day.

“Just tell her how you feel, sir,” Haylen said, sitting down next to her senior officer.

His gaze returned to his meal. “… I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Danse replied firmly, although the grip on his fork increased. He continued eating.

“You may be able to fool the others, but you can’t fool me. You take the time to assist with her Power Armor, to supervise the modification and care of her weapons, to take point when the mission poses a higher risk than initially suspected. I’ve known you long enough to know that something’s different, sir.”

The Paladin’s face remained neutral for a moment before hardening just a touch, brows furrowing ever so slightly. _Damn._ “I do that will all members of the squad, Haylen. You know that.”

“Someone else might not be able to spot the difference, but I can, sir. I can see it. It’s the way you look at her, sir. It’s subtle, but it’s there. I bet you didn’t even notice that it’s the same way she looks at you sometimes,” the Scribe went on to say, glancing around. Nobody else was inside the police station at the moment. They were all outside, completing tasks.

Danse had stopped eating. _What did she mean, the way she looks at him?_ He cleared his throat, moving the food around his plate without taking a bite. “It’s not that easy, Haylen,” he said flatly after a moment, almost ready to put an end to this conversation.

“What makes it not easy, sir? You might be surprised,” she offered supportively, looking at her senior officer, his gaze still unwavering from the meal in front of him.

The Paladin made a brief huff, not quite a sigh, more just a frustrated exhalation of air. “I’m her senior officer, Haylen. Such behavior would be looked down upon for being unprofessional and wrong for a man of my position. There are other factors at play that make that notion a foolish idea at best.”

“Perhaps it’s only complicated because that’s how you see it, sir,” Haylen said, giving her senior officer a playful nudge of her elbow. Hearing the door to the station open, the Scribe stood up. Softly, she said, “Just tell her.”

Danse looked up at her for only a moment before she was back to her duties, busying herself in the other room as she poured over recently acquired technical documents from a recent mission.

It was true that she was one of the best analysts in the entire Brotherhood, after all.

_Dammit._

A few moments later the senior officer stood up, disposed of his meal items and made himself busy. Armed with his familiar laser rifle, he left through the front doors of the police station, eager to get back out onto a patrol and away from his thoughts.


	10. A New Lead

“Sir?”

Paladin Danse gave his head a mental shake, bringing himself back to the present. “Sorry, Knight, what were you saying?”

Gladen made a slight face before resuming her report, “Intel indicates that most of the locations of interest in our region have been sufficiently cleared, sir. That we are currently waiting on a new insertion point in the Southern Commonwealth area, to the West of the main core. No new reports have identified progress in our search for the Institute. Until we hear from them, we are to hold position and maintain our presence in the Commonwealth.”

“Outstanding,” the senior officer nodded slightly, taking mental notes as the information was relayed. It basically meant: _Stay put until they were needed elsewhere._ It was fairly standard these days to complete their missions within such a successful time frame that they were left waiting a few days or up to a week for new orders.

“Was that all?” Paladin Danse asked, regarding his recruit.

She stood in her regular fatigues around the compound, unless on patrol or watch. The T-60 Power Armor she wore stood at the back of the police station, fusion core engaged, ready to enter in only a few short moments should the need arise.

“Yes, sir, as far as I know,” Knight Reed said with an affirmative nod.

“Organize the watch for the evening and see if Haylen has any local tech that she wants investigated while we’re stationed here,” Paladin Danse said. For some reason, he enjoyed being at the police station. It wasn’t the Prydwen, but it somehow felt… calmer out here. He wouldn’t mind having an excuse to stay at this outpost a few more days.

“Already done, Paladin,” Reed said. She didn’t depart right away.

Paladin Danse raised a slight brow. “Was there something else, soldier?”

Reed nodded. “Yes, sir. I uh…” She paused.

The senior officer continued to look at her, openly wondering what she wanted.

“I may have a lead, sir,” she said, mind racing. Part of her had been hesitant to bring this up at all.

“A lead? What kind of lead?” he asked, curious.

The Knight swallowed hard. “Well I… uh… A friend of mine…” she sighed, trying to not let her anxiety show. “A friend of mine contacted me recently in regards to a lead that he had. Said it was fairly urgent. Wouldn’t say what, it wasn’t a secure line of communication. All he said was that it was worth a shot and might be of use.” _Well, here goes nothing._

_A friend?_ “Who is this… _‘friend’_ of yours? What do you suspect it may be about?” Danse pressed slightly, eyes narrowing as if studying the situation.

It was her turn to raise a brow. _What was he insinuating by saying ‘friend’ like that?_

“He helped me with intel before, back when I was new to the Commonwealth, after I met you, Haylen and Rhys. Met up with him between recon missions. He helped me with a lead. It was a good lead. I have reason to suspect it may be intel related to that situation,” she explained, careful to avoid mentioning too much about the detective.

The Paladin clenched his teeth slightly in thought, jawline flexing ever so slightly as he tried to figure out his feelings on this matter. If one thing was clear, it was that Knight Reed always seemed to surprise them with how well she was getting on in the world. It appeared she had even developed her own resources. If he wasn’t so busy being critical, he might have been impressed.

“Do you believe the intel he may have would be beneficial to our cause?” Danse finally asked. “Would it be useful, or just a waste of our time?”

“I’m not sure, sir,” Reed said plainly, opening her hands. “I don’t know what he found. All I know is that the last case we worked on was related to the Institute.”

It was the Paladin’s turn to tweak. “I don’t believe you ever told me much about that, soldier. Care to elaborate?”

Knight Reed nodded. She’d never really felt it was relative to bring up before then, aside from shoving her sour mood in Rhys’ face. “He helped me track down the person who we suspected had kidnapped my son,” she said plainly, no longer as emotionally raw as the weeks went on. It didn’t choke her to talk about anymore, not like before. “When we located this individual, he was guarded by dozens of Gen-1’s. Synths, armed to the bolts. Fortified in an entire building designed to keep people out. He helped me get past the security, take out any hostiles along the way. He stood by me when I met the devil who kidnapped my little boy, had my back when things got rough.”

A lump formed in her throat. _Maybe the emotions were still a little bit raw._ “… He was working for the Institute, sir, the man we were tracking. It was the Institute that hired him to kidnap my boy. They took him, that’s why my son is missing. The man who did it… He was named Kellogg. I killed him, sir.”

“ _Shit_ , Reed, why didn’t you tell me?” Danse said, taken aback, voice a little stern, mind a little torn. He was a hurt that she’d never brought this to him before now, although he understood why she may felt she needed to keep it to herself. He was frustrated. _She shouldn’t have taken that on by herself._

“It was a personal vendetta, sir,” Knight Reed said, emotion in her voice. _I had to do it on my own,_ was what she was trying to say.

Her senior officer squeezed the bridge of his nose right between his eyes, other arm folded over his chest. It was difficult to tell if he was getting a headache, or if the situation was just making his head hurt.

“Alright,” he said after a minute, putting his arm down so that both lay folded across his chest, “so this ‘friend’ of yours, he helped you track down a man from the Institute a couple months back?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And it’s this same ‘friend’ of yours that has relayed communication to you that he has new intel, on a topic he couldn’t identify due to an unsecure channel? What is the likelihood that this intel is somehow related to matters of the Institute?” Paladin Danse wasn’t questioning the Knight’s instincts, moreso being cautious about whether or not to invest their resources. “Why do you think that’s what he is contacting you about?”

“Because,” Gladen said evenly, “the last time I spoke to him, we were still trying to find a way to get in to the Institute and get my son back.”

Danse stared at her for a long moment, calculating, analysing, trying to determine how this situation felt, how it sat with him in his gut. Reed was one of the few people that never looked away when his gaze got intense. Most looked down. She didn’t. She stared back evenly.

“Alright,” he said finally, turning away in thought, almost pacing. “I’ll allow further investigation of this matter, only because it falls between assignments and, if the intel is accurate, it could provide us with an additional lead in our mission to find the Institute.”

Knight Reed visibly relaxed, as if she’d been holding her breath the whole time. “Thank you, sir,” she said, softness once again back in her voice. It was the tone of voice that Paladin Danse found he was growing fond of. “I’ll investigate the source of our communication to ensure the truth of the transmission, then relay an encrypted message to him about a meet-up location and time.”

“Affirmative,” Danse agreed, glad she was being cautious. The Vault dweller turned to leave. The Paladin called out, “However, we do this task on one condition; You aren’t going alone. Verify the information, then you and I can meet this contact of yours and find out what he knows.”

He watched his recruit visibly stiffen, her back to him, stopping as she turned to leave. A red flag went up in the Paladin’s mind. His brows furrowed slightly, suspicious. Knight Reed half-turned back towards her superior, glancing around briefly to see if anybody else was listening. No one was around.

“If you want to come along,sir, I need one thing from you, ….” she began slowly, cautiously, treading ever-so-carefully on the matter.

“What is it?” he said, tone a little sharp, expression suspicious as he stared hard at her. He had a feeling that there was something she wasn’t being totally honest about. _Honesty and respect._ It was expected in this team. If she was being dishonest with him, he was of a mind to withdraw his approval for this entire expedition, _intel be damned._

“Just… when we meet him... please don’t shoot him, sir.”


	11. Meeting Nick

Paladin Danse leaned against the edge of a service counter, brows lowered, still not quite sure his thoughts on the situation they were presently in. After leaving the police station to meet up with a contact Reed had mentioned, his recruit had opened up more about what to expect. At first, she had been apprehensive. Understandably so. It wasn’t everyday that a recruit would have to inform their senior officer that their point of contact was an actual synth from the Institute. Danse had reacted… appropriately.

“What do you mean your contact is a synth?! Reed, the synth are our enemies, what we’re fighting against. A tool of the Institute. They’re one of the reasons we’re out here. Out here fighting in the Commonwealth for the greater good. Don’t you realize what kind of trap you’re having us walk into? I have half a mind to send you back to the Prydwen for debriefing,” he’d ranted, gesturing dramatically, losing his temper to a degree.

Surprisingly enough, Knight Reed didn’t back down. She didn’t shrink away, didn’t sulk, didn’t look at her boots and apologize or ask for forgiveness. She just stared at him with a stony expression, almost like a mother watching their toddler throwing a tantrum.

After pacing back and forth for what seemed like fifteen minutes, chest heaving as he practically growled under his breath, he spun and turned to her. “Well?! What do you have to say for yourself, recruit? Answer me. Right now.”

Reed had simply raised an eyebrow at him and asked: “Are you done?”

Paladin Danse had been unable to find the words to express his sheer fury at being lead out here on such a foolish mission, mouth working as if wanting to speak, clearly on the edge of sending her back right that minute.

“Sir, if you want to catch a synth, who would you ask first? People who believe the Institute is the boogeyman? Settlers on the roads, telling stories at camp? Or perhaps… perhaps the best way to understand synths is to ask a synth,” she’d said evenly, calmly, not trying to feed his anger. It made no sense to fight fire with fire, and so she had remained calm.

“I don’t agree with this, Reed. Not at all,” Danse had muttered, low, warningly. “Why would a synth help us? You could be walking us into a trap, a trap by the very Institute we’re trying to gain access to.”

“He may be a synth, but he’s not with them,” she’d said evenly. “Not every dog you meet is going to be a wild mongrel. Just because all you’ve met before is wild dogs willing to tear your face off doesn’t mean every single dog in the world is going to try to kill you.”

The discussion had gone on for quite some type. Finally, it was agreed. They would meet with this synth, see what intel he could provide, and treat the situation as if they were walking into a trap. If things went bad, Danse retained authority to destroy every hostile, no questions asked. Otherwise, Reed would take point on this one, and see what she could find out.

Hardware Town was in the Eastern section of the downtown core, off the main strip, tucked away without too many prying eyes. It had been a location that Reed had communicated to their contact as a point of meeting. Danse had completed two sweeps of the building when they first arrived; One for hostiles, one for any potential remote-detonating devices. Once that was complete, he had also cleared the two buildings adjacent to the area. Just to be sure. If he was anything it was thorough.

Now they waited near the front entrance, Danse holding his laser rifle at the ready as an awkward silence fell over the two. He was still… It wasn’t mad. Frustrated, maybe? Apprehensive?

She’d been honest with him, which he was grateful for. At least that gave him some warning about what they might encounter. Perhaps it was simply the unknown that was irking the senior soldier. He checked again to make sure his weapon had sufficient ammunition.

Several hours had passed. Maybe this contact wouldn’t show after all.

The door to Hardware Town opened and a figure stepped inside, closing the entrance behind him.

“Sorry I’m late,” a familiar voice rang out from the doorway, Boston-cop drawl announcing his arrival. “Had a bit of a run-in with a certain local reporter looking for the ‘next big scoop’. Had to give her the ole dust-off once I made my way out to this neck of the woods. Didn’t want her crashing our little chat.”

“Nick!” Reed said, hopping off the countertop, smiling at the detective. “It’s good to see you again. Nick, this is my senior off—“

Reed was cut off.

“Hands up, _synth_ ,” Paladin Danse growled, laser rifle taking aim at the newcomer’s metallic head.

“ _Danse!_ What are you _doing?_ You promised,” Knight Reed said, stepping up beside her senior officer, putting a hand lightly on his arm. Nick Valentine wisely put his hands up into the air, one hand distinctly missing its synthetic layers.

Danse didn’t take his eyes off the metallic abomination.

His recruit narrowed her eyes slightly, dropping her hand and purposely stepping in front of his laser rifle at close range. “This is _my_ mission, let me run it,” her tone dropped, an edge to her voice, gaze unwavering.

With what could only be a growl, Paladin Danse stepped back and released his weapon. He folded his arms over his chest, brows furrowed. They would have an in-depth talk about _this_ later.

“Your new boyfriend’s a bit jumpy, ain’t he?” Nick said, brushing off his coat and straightening his dusty fedora. “Guess that makes sense. Never did get much love from The Brotherhood.”

_He’s not my…_ “He’ll be alright,” Gladen said, glancing back at her commanding officer. The glare that met her gaze could’ve melted the steel of Power Armor. She simply shook her head before turning once more to Nick.

“You’re right, though. He does cut quite the handsome figure in that Power Armor, huh? T-60 model. Good choice. I can see why you’d want to be working with him on these kinds of missions,” Nick cracked with a wink at Reed, trying to lighten the mood.

Danse’s sour veneer twitched just slightly, glancing at his recruit.

Reed put a hand over her face, a flush rising in her cheeks. _Great. Thanks Nick._

“Anyway, where were we? Ah, yes, the Institute,” the synth pulled out some papers stashed inside his trench coat, tapping them on a nearby countertop to straighten them out. “Seems you’re not the only ones trying to find a way in, or a way out for that matter. Lots of people have their theories, most of them bogus, though. Some poor sap tried to draw me a map to the place. Said he’d give me a heck of a deal on it. 500 caps. I’m almost sorry I passed on it.

“The technology, however, is just too advanced for most people to track. Heck, even I can’t be sure of where they are or how to find them, and I’m a synth myself! Discard prototype, but still… However, I was still able to track down a possible lead. A tech-savvy doctor in the central core area. Doctor Amari. She does work at the Memory Den. Worked on me a few times too. Nice gal. Smart as a whip. Says the chip we found inside Kellogg’s head might have some viable information on it, if she can access it. Even if she can access it, the Institute is bound to have fail-safes and encryption keeping the information secure. If you still happen to have the chip, we might get lucky. Do you still have it, Ms. Reed?”

“Affirmative. I locked it up at my base of operations for safe-keeping,” she said, leaning over the counter to take a look at the notes Nick had laid out in front of them.

Danse was listened intently.

“We knew Kellogg was working with the Institute. There’s a slim chance some of his memories might provide us with a clue as to how he did it. If he was working for them, there must have been some means of communication between them. Maybe even a way to get in,” Nick rehashed the details.

“Sounds like a good lead, Nick,” Gladen was nodding along.

“Well, it was the best I could come up with, given the circumstances,” Nick said, scratching his head with a metallic hand. He was, of course, referring to the fact that they had blown up their only lead prior to that. “Not sure it’ll do us any good unless Amari can decode the chip, though.”

“Do you think they have advanced enough technology to take on that kind of task, sir? At the Prydwen?” Reed said, taking a moment to connect with her superior. The information Nick had presented seemed to have softened the edge of his sour mood.

At first it seemed that the Paladin was going to remain silent, happy to stew off to the side until this little transaction was complete. _Damn._ “It’s possible,” he finally admitted, looking first to Reed before casting another suspicious glance at Nick. “The problem lies in the fact that we’ve never worked on decrypting direct Institute information before.”

“The Institute has multiple levels of security on whatever they work on,” Nick went to say. “Doctor Amari has worked on me before, and a couple of the Gen 3’s that I know of. Out here, she may have the most hands-on experience.”

Nick had a point.

“It’s worth a shot,” Knight Reed said, tracing a finger across her lower lip in thought, thinking of their next step. “I appreciate your help, Nick. Let me see if I can’t track down that chip, then Paladin Danse and I will figure out our next step.”

“Sounds good, Ms. Reed,” Nick said, smiling at the Vault dweller before glancing at Danse. His yellow eyes glowed unmistakably against the dim light of the broken-down hardware store. “I’m glad you’re staying safe out there, kid. Always important to have someone watching your back these days.”

Reed half-smiled. “Yeah, I’m in good hands, Nick,” the Vault Dweller said in her kind tone. She held her hand out to the detective, shaking his metallic hand in appreciation. “You do good work, detective. Sorry I always land you with these hard cases.”

Nick chuckled. “Not a problem, Ms. Reed. The tough ones are always some of my favorites. Let me know if you need any help after obtaining that chip. I’d be happy to put you in touch with Doctor Amari. Who knows, she might even give us a referral discount for her services.”

His recruit thanked the metallic man again before leaving. Once again the hardware store fell into an awkward silence.

Danse somehow found himself not as angry as before. He still detested synths and everything they stood for. That would never change. Yet the contact had provided some level of intel, above and beyond anything they’d had in recent months. Even if it proved out to be a dead end, or a runaround, at least they had some idea of a direction to go on. At worst, they would be right back where they started. At best, they’d find out a little bit more about the Institute.

Knight Reed was packing up to leave, eager to be on their way. It was never a wise idea to hang around somewhere after any type of meeting. One never knew who was following who, just in case.

It was Paladin Danse who broke the awkward silence first.

“Base of operations?” he said, his tone having lost its bitter edge from earlier.

Reed sighed and rubbed the back of her neck, turning to look up at her commanding officer. She looked tired.

“What else was I supposed it, my home sweet home?”


	12. Confession

Silence hung between them for quite a few miles after their last meeting, each one not quite sure what to say to the other. It wasn’t an awkward silence so much as it was just a void, a hole where a question was hanging, unsure of what might be on the other’s mind.

It had been Paladin Danse who started the conversation once more. Clearly something was on his mind.

“Look,” he said with a deep breath, giving thought to his next words, “when you told me who you were working with, it took me by surprise. The only synths I’d ever met were immediate threats to my life, and the lives of all those around me. They are created by the Institute, which has remained elusive on its purpose here in the Commonwealth. All we’ve ever encountered from the Institute has been hostility. Understand that my reaction wasn’t representative of your capabilities or judgment as a soldier, but was an overreaction to the situation presented to us.”

Silence hung between them a moment longer. Only the sounds of their footsteps crushing the dried, dead grass echoed around them. Danse pressed his lips together before shaking his head.

“Reed, I’m sorry,” he finally admitted.

The Knight paused, looking forward. Eventually she lowered her rifle, which had been held at attention for as long as they had left the city core. She rubbed her temple idly with her spare hand, her Power Armor having been left back at the police station.

“Look, sir, I’m doing the best I can,” she said quietly. “You want intel, I tried to get you intel. Nothing about our job out here is safe. It’s all about calculated risks. When I told you about this contact, I assumed it would be best if I went alone. You insisted on coming along. That was fine, but I would never ask you to come on a mission without understanding it in its detail. That’s why I told you about Nick, about him being a synth, so that you wouldn’t be surprised. And then you took that information and threw it back in my face, as if I didn’t understand what it meant.”

Reed’s tone and body language got slightly more animated, “I would never risk putting you, or anyone in our squad, in direct danger without first weighing the situation in its entirety. If I’d felt it was too dangerous, too much of a risk, I wouldn’t have brought it up in the first place. You said you always had my back. Do you think I don’t have your safety in mind when it comes to things like this? That I don’t think of you first? That I don’t realize my intel, the research I do on a situation, could be the difference between keeping us safe or getting us all killed in any of these recon missions? That the reason I ask for help at all is because I value your experience? Experience I lack because I was frozen away in some Vault for more than 200 years, making it that much more important for me to try harder and do better than everyone else?”

The Knight’s grip on her rifle tightened, knuckles turning white. For a brief second it looked as if she might throw the weapon in frustration. Instead she just stared off in the distance for a short time before her body language began to soften. Red-copper hair swayed as she shook her head slightly.

“Do you even trust me?” she said, looking up at him. Her green eyes met his, searching. Abruptly, she turned, resuming their walk to the agreed upon destination.

Paladin Danse visibly sighed and hurried after her. A Power Armored hand grabbed her arm, stopping her swiftly and turning her sharply to face him. He rested a hand on each of her shoulders, making sure to hold her gaze as he spoke.

“Reed, listen,” he said, squeezing her shoulders for emphasis, “I do trust you. If that hasn’t been made clear by now, I’m sorry that I haven’t been more forward in saying it. You perform admirably as a fellow member of this squad. I’ve met many Knights during my time with the Brotherhood, and out of all of them, you would be the one I’d ask for if they told me to pick someone to watch my back. You know that I am the one who is used to carrying the burden of looking out for the entire team, of ensuring everybody’s safety. I trust my brothers and sisters in arms, but the task of keeping them safe… I take it personally. I’m not used to anyone else doing that for me.”

His brown eyes were softly colored, rich like earth, the slightest flecks of gold near the centre. She stared at him, heart racing. “We care about you, Danse,” she said softly, not turning away.

“I care about _you_ , Reed,” he said openly. He touched her cheek with an armored finger, gently dotting away a tear that had managed to roll down despite her trying to blink them away.

“The idea of you going out on this missions by yourself, about rushing off somewhere for some cause alone… I can’t imagine. What if something happened to you? What if you were hurt, outflanked? With no one there to have your back, what would happen to you? What if you died out there on your own? Do you think I could ever forgive myself if something like that happened while you were a part of this team? Especially if it was something that could have been prevented? Something I could have helped you with? I’d never forgive myself for allowing that to happen,” the last of his words were distant.

He broke eye contact, looking down and away briefly as if reorganizing his thoughts, before looking back at her.

“Look I’m… I’m not very good at this kind of thing,” he said, clearing his throat slightly. “As your senior officer I’m supposed to keep matters between us on a professional level. However, traveling with you these past few months… Its taught me a lot, both about myself and the world out here. Most importantly, it taught me a lot about you, who you are. You are someone I am proud to call a part of my team, a companion on the road and in missions. I look to you not only as a member of The Brotherhood, but as a close friend, someone I can share my thoughts with. Maybe something more. I just… I wanted to know if… well I wanted to ask if these past few months have been as meaningful to you as they have been to me…? Or, if, moving forward, you believe matters between us would best remain exclusively professional, nothing more?” _Smooth._

He wondered if she could hear his heart pounding in his chest, nearly holding his breath, unsure of what might happen now.

He was surprised to feel her lips on his, her hands holding the front of his Power Armor as she both pulled him slightly lower and stood up on the tips of her toes. Reed’s lips were soft, sweet, delicate. It wasn’t needy, nor rushed or lustful kind of kiss. He felt as he was melting against them, his stubble a rough contrast to the smooth touch of her skin. His hand slipped to her lower back as they embraced.

After a moment, they parted.

“I forgive you,” she said softly, touching his slightly flushed cheek.

_Well then._


	13. After Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Caution: Sexual content of a graphic nature is featured in this chapter. You've been advised)

They made love that night.

Reed had offered to take first watch after arriving at the Chestnut Hillock Reservoir. It would be another day and a bit on foot until they reached their next destination point, where the chip they were seeking was stashed away safely. In the meantime, secure locations and an outlook for hostiles were a top priority, not wanting to be caught after dark out in the open.

The small lake boasted several houses, mostly falling apart or too unstable to really call them secure. However, one of the houses seemed to suit their needs well enough to call a stop for the evening. Both Brotherhood soldiers had swept the area to ensure its safety before they settled in for the night. A few stray bugs had to be dealt with, but nothing they couldn’t handle.

As night fell, Reed left to maintain her watch, leaving her senior officer to his thoughts.

It had been a quiet walk onward after their kiss in the woods, the silence no longer strained but comfortable. At worst, Danse experienced only slight nervousness over the matter, thinking silently to himself about how they might ensure this didn’t affect matters with them operating together for the Brotherhood. At best, he felt an odd and unfamiliar excitement about it all that seemed to sit in the pit of his stomach, occasionally creeping to his face where he’d have the slightest of smiles.

It had been an interesting day all around.

He stared up at the ceiling for quite some time, unable to sleep in the unfamiliar surroundings, Power Armor only a few short steps away in case events changed. He was anxious to continue with this particular mission, given the possibilities it might open up for them and their search.

The door opened quietly about mid-evening. Earlier than he anticipated for them to switch watch designation, but perhaps she was tired from the day’s events and needed to trade off sooner than they had predicted. It made sense.

Righteous Authority was put delicately down beside his bedroll by the returning Knight, the sound of its stock hitting the old floorboards with a mild thud.

“Reed, is everything alri…” he sat up.

The words disappeared as his recruit knelt down with knees on either side of his hips, her sweet lips finding his in the darkness without hesitation and kissing him passionately. It caught him so off-guard that he was struck with a moment of confusion, unsure of how to proceed with the intel he was being faced with all of a sudden, his body rigid out of reflex. The kissing paused, the feminine body pressed against him beginning to stiffen slightly, move as if to pull away in a second thought.

_Perhaps she’d been too forward,_ she thought suddenly, second-guessing herself with regret.

The Paladin put his large hands on either side of her waist, at the dip just above her hips, squeezing reassuringly. He wasn’t trying to resist, he had just been taken by surprise. His lips softened and parted gently, kissing the beautiful woman back. One of his hands slipped behind the small of her back, fingers tracing up her spine as he leaned back against the bedroll, beckoning her to lower with him. The muscles along her back arched at his touch, a tremor rippling down her spine.

When the kiss broke apart, both parties were breathing in a quickened state, bodies dangerously close to one another. He was so warm, his skin fiery to the touch. Reed was so used to being cold out in the Commonwealth. She welcomed the heat of his body.

“Reed, is this… is this what you want?” he asked softly, breathlessly. He was drinking in her form as best he could in the dim light. The pressure of her body heightened his senses in every manner of speaking.

“Yes, sir,” she whispered back, lips on his neck.

Danse pressed his lips together, stifling a sound as it raised from his throat. The way she said those words simply increasing the ache that was growing throughout his entire body. One hand remained on her hip, grip firm. The other ran slowly along her back, feeling her form as she knelt above him. It slipped down to her ribs, pausing for a moment as she arched her back ever so slightly, encouraging his touch to continue.

Reed reached up with her spare hand, grasping the zipper at the top of her fatigues, slowly pulling it down to her navel as her lips found his once more. Gently, she grasped his wrist, guiding him to her exposed breasts with urgency. His skin was rough, calloused, worn from his hard work over the years. How she’d watched those hands before, recently finding herself aching to have them on her. She moaned softly against his lips before having to pull away, gripping his shoulder with a gasp as he ran his thumb over her nipple in gentle circles.

She could feel him, feel him hard beneath her as she continued to straddle his hips, only a few layers of cloth between them. Gently she rolled her hips, his grip on her flesh increasing every time she did. Slowly, she drew circles with her movements, managing to draw a moan from her male counterpart with great satisfaction.

She sat back, shrugging the top of her jumpsuit down, bringing both of his hands to her breasts as the air around them seemed to be growing in temperature. Carefully she unclasped the top fasteners on his shirt as well, running her hand over the bare skin below as it was exposed. The muscles that were flexing there, strong, battle-hardened. A hand traced down, palm flat against his body, reaching between them to stroke his hardness. His hips flexed against her touch as he drew a sharp breath.

Soon he was free of the restrictive clothing, her hand firmly around the thickness of his manhood, teasing him with short and careful strokes.

Reed untangled herself from the remainder of her jumpsuit with speed, returning to her position above her senior officer, skin exposed in the near-dark of the abandoned building. His hands were exploring her body with great intent now, no longer needing suggestion on where to touch and caress. He ran a hand up the top of her soft thigh, coming to her hip before darting slightly to the side. With a thumb, he caressed at her moist folds, sighing at the wetness and heat of her. She arched against his touch with a small sound, half gasp, half moan.

His cock twitched, hard and aching in the cool night air. A drip of pre-cum formed at the tip.

“Is this…” she whispered lustily, sighing against his neck, a hand gripping his shoulder, “… is this alright, sir?”

Again she rolled her hips, teasing him with her warmth. His hand on her hip gripped almost painfully hard, Danse’s eyes closing as his breath hitched in his throat. After a moment they opened again, intense, full of lust. Realizing what she was asking, he nodded in the dim light, not trusting his voice just at that moment.

With her delicate hand, she guided him to her entrance, slowly lowering herself upon his sizable shaft, pausing slightly after each breath as her body adapted to it. Reed’s eyes closed as she moaned with bliss, back arching slightly as her hips came to meet his, his length filling her completely. Danse gripped her hips with both hands, breathing ragged, eyes taking in the beauty of the woman before him.

Slowly, she began to rock against his form, drawing quiet moans from them both as his member slid back and forth within her tight form.

Danse was hard-pressed not to climax within just a few strokes, hands gripping her hips as he guided her motion against his manhood, his own slight thrusts coming up to meet hers as they increased in speed and rhythm. He scarcely noticed the sounds they made as they moved together as one, eyes occasionally closing as he fought to resist coming to the edge too quickly.

He could feel her body as it began to grow tense against his own, her soft form around his member growing tighter with each passing stroke. The tone of her voice began to become throaty, more needful, her breaths becoming gasps as she approached her climax. One of her hands clutched her breast, tracing the nipple with a finger. A hand came to rest on his chest as she leaned forward slightly.

“Yes, sir… Oh _yes,_ sir…!” she moaned lustfully as her body fell fully into orgasm, rocking herself firmly against him.

He could feel her tense around him, squeezing him in a pulsing manner, her warm increasing as she grew even tighter around his shaft, working herself against him as she gasped and moaned in the half-light.

Unable to hold back anymore, he gave in to the pleasure, the build-up, hips thrusting upwards against his recruit as he let go his control. Each spasm of pleasure rippled through his entire body, muscles tensing as he closed his eyes. Wave after wave flooded his senses as he finished inside her tightness. Calloused hands held her thighs as he slowly their movements, breath catching in his throat.

Neither moved for several moments, catching their breath. She balanced atop him with a hand on his chest. His fingers still gripped her hips and thighs slightly.

Gingerly, she untwined herself from him.

An unknown amount of time passed as they lay side-by-side, her head having come to utilize his arm and chest for a pillow against the hard wood of the floor. Having caught their breath and savoured the last of their pleasure, regaining mental focus and the trembling of their body’s coming to a still, Reed slowly sat up to regard her superior. She had a playful smile on her flushed cheeks.

“It’s your watch now, sir,” she said, still somewhat breathless. He chuckled in the dark.

_Outstanding._


	14. The Chip

The Sunshine Co-op settlement appeared to be doing quite well for itself since the last time Gladen had laid eyes upon it. The wall fortifications were coming along well, now surrounding the majority of the perimeter. Guard posts dotted the fence line periodically as a few of the more weapon-savvy settlers took up arms, keeping an eye out for any hostiles. A local Super mutant base a few clicks from their position made for some interesting nights at times. Luckily, nearly a dozen medium-sized turrets hummed dutifully along the edge of their land, ready to open fire on any noted hostile approach.

“This isn’t what I expected to see,” Paladin Danse said, his analytical mind taking in the scene as it laid out before him. He was pleasantly surprised to see the settler’s taking matters of defense so seriously. It seems the Brotherhood weren’t the only ones fighting to take a stand in the Commonwealth.

Knight Reed felt a small warmth of pride in her chest as they approached. It felt good to have her superior’s approval of what they had done here.

A shout was heard from one of the guard posts, instructing any able hands to open the gate. The sound of wood and metal latches being thrown aside could be heard, followed by one of the great doors groaning to welcome them inside.

“Ms. Gladen, glad to see you’ve returned,” one of the more heavily armed men said, holding what appeared to be a heavily modified .45 bolt action rifle. A blade had been crudely fashioned to the end. “I hope the road has been good to you?”

“Yes, matters have been going quite well,” Knight Reed said with a nod. “Any instances since I was last here, Thomas?”

They walked further into the interior of the settlement.

“A few small Super mutant raiding parties,” the armored man admitted, although his tone remained pleasant. “Getting those additional turrets up and running was a huge tipping point in giving us the advantage in that altercation, ma’am. We’re grateful you sent Codsworth our way to help with their maintenance and repair. Without his help, I’m not sure we would’ve come out of that one unphased.”

“That's great news!” Reed said, truly thankful they’d done well. “We’re just passing through, as we have some time senstive matters to attend to. Is there anything else I can help with in the meantime? Do you need anything from the other settlements that I can send word about?”

“No, ma’am. Sanctuary is sending supplies in the next couple of days. Until then, we seem to be well provisioned.”

“If you do, send word to Preston and, if you need anymore help with defenses, Codsworth can join you on some scavenging runs,” the Vault dweller said with a reassuring nod.

“Yes, ma’am. I’d best get back to my post. We’ll be here if you need us.” With that, the tall man left to resume his watch of the front gates, calling out to ensure they’d secured the massive entrance after their visitors were inside.

Paladin Danse regarded the Knight at his side with his typical hard-to-read expression. He lifted an eyebrow slightly as he looked over at her, “Seems you’ve been busy.”

Reed shook her head slightly, “Preston helps settlements all over the Commonwealth when they require aid. Sometimes it’s defenses. Sometimes it’s food. Sometimes it’s something completely different. If I pass by one of the settlements asking for aid between missions, I’ll take some time and give them assistance. It’s not hard to set up relay towers so that they can communicate more effectively with other settlements nearby. That’s just something I do here and there. It’s not much, but it gives them an advantage.”

Her superior officer surprised her by nodding in approval as they walked. “It makes sense,” he said, the tone of his voice thoughtful as he internally analyzed the concept. “An exposed and weak settlement is an easy target for hostiles out here. United, they stand a much better chance of defending themselves. Good work, Knight.”

Reed did indeed feel proud now, “Thank you, sir.”

Several settlers worked the garden while a few others tended to other tasks. Most wore a patchwork of gear or clothing, nothing really matching anymore. Still, it was better than cotton rags, and would offer them some level of protection.

“Up here,” she gestured, climbing the stairs to the second floor of a wooden building. It was sturdy, well-built.

Inside the second floor was just the basic amenities; A bed, some storage trunks, a chair, a small table by the bedside. A lamp hung from the ceiling, glowing faintly. After all, the settlement was running power systems throughout.

It was her little home away from home.

Danse looked around the room, taking in the details. It was bigger than his quarters above the Prydwen.

“Sorry, I know it’s not much to look at,” Reed apologized, suddenly feeling the slightest bit vulnerable. This place certainly shouldn’t be used as the basis to analyze her homemaking skills. Give her enough time off from missions, a little paint, some ‘homey’ items and maybe it would all start to come together. “Below here is a workshop that I use sometimes, to maintain or repair any weapons while I have a moment, or keep my Power Armor ready at a moments notice,” she went on to explain, opening a nearby green chest and pulling out some objects.

“It’s nice,” the Paladin said. They were on the road so much that she probably never had much time to enjoy it, he suspected.

The Knight seemed relieved to find the blue jumpsuit within her storage locker, unfolding it carefully on the mattress of her bed.

Yellow letters distinctly stood out against the blue contrast: ‘Vault 111’.

“Here it is,” she said with a tone of victory, lifting up a small object from the sea of fabric folds. Paladin Danse was still wearing his Power Armor, so he opted not to try and handle the delicate chip. Instead he leaned forward, inspecting it as the young woman held it up to him.

The senior officer’s expression hardened slightly as his thoughts turned to the matter at hand. “You truly believe this chip might hold the key to finding out more about the Institute?”

Knight Reed’s own expression became stoic, calm, almost cold. “When I fished this out of what remained of Kellogg’s skull, it wasn’t because I thought we could find a way in using it,” she said, completely honest. “I kept it because it confirmed to me that Kellogg really was dead, that it really was the Institute who had hired him to take my son. If we can use it now to get further intel, then that’s what we’ll do.”

Part of her had already given up hope on ever finding Shaun, at least alive. Not out here. Not against people like that. If anything drove her, it was the idea of closure, of finding out the truth, and about extracting vengeance against those who had wronged her.

The Knight put the chip into a secure pocket, tapping it slightly as if double-checking it was there.

“Did you want to stay here for another day, Knight?” Paladin Danse asked, unsure of where his companion’s mind was at. Her mood had switched slightly since arriving.

“I’d rather just get back out onto the road, sir.”

“Affirmative,” the Brotherhood soldier agreed.

Now that they had the chip it would be wise to keep moving. They’d again make contact with a certain smooth-talking detective at the next available opportunity in hopes that maybe there was still some useful information on that hardware from Kellogg’s skull.


	15. The Next Step

Doctor Amari had proven to be crucial to their investigation into the Institute. Nick had joined up with the duo as they headed to Good Neighbor, a sketchy kind of settlement where one wrong look could land a person in the midst of a brawl. Of course, Paladin Danse didn’t enjoy his time there in the slightest. Then again, the Brotherhood didn’t get much love when it came to certain groups in the Commonwealth.

Nick had helped them above and beyond the call of duty that time, offering himself as a means of assisting with the translation of the chip. Without him, they wouldn’t have been able to access the chip and stream its contents.

Gladen had been similarly linked as well, able to view the process and memories as they went through them. Expecting to see the worst of the worst, she’d braced herself for the horrors that would be Kellogg’s mind. It hadn’t played out like she expected at all. A rough life, a poor deck of hands and some up-top exploitive people were all it took to turn Kellogg into the unfeeling monster she remembered. Where once had been rage was now replaced with a mixture of sadness for him, and frustration that maybe if he had done things differently this wouldn’t have happened to her family.

Still, they got the intel they were looking for, their next step. A scientist named Virgil. Hidden away in the Glowing Sea.

Paladin Danse hadn’t been allowed in the room as it all took place, instead standing impatiently outside the doorway as the doctor completed her work and hopefully got them a lead. When he saw Reed next, his frustration was replaced with a sense of apprehension, the look on her face somewhat alarming.

“Reed, what happened in there?” he asked, concerned at the change in his companion.

She put a hand on his forearm, almost as if giving her strength by reassuring herself that Danse was still there.

“They took him, Danse,” she said softly. “I saw him as a boy, maybe 12. When they were still living in Diamond City. But Nick said… Nick said that place had been abandoned for years. I just…. what do I do now?”

The Paladin’s face was hard to read, a mixture of so many things going on beneath the surface. The situations they faced were never exactly what they seemed. After a moment, he put his hand atop the one still gripping his forearm, giving hers a soft squeeze.

“We’ll get inside,” he promised.


	16. Taking Fort Strong

“No,” Paladin Danse said firmly as his measured gaze held the green eyes of his recruit as she sat opposite of him at the mess hall table.

Knight Reed continued to try and match his assertive gaze as best she could with her own. However, her senior officer had dealt with many a new recruit in his years of working with the Brotherhood and would not yield so easily. He almost mockingly sipped his coffee without breaking eye contact. The faintest of huffs escaped her as she backed down, settling once more into their breakfast.

Was that a hint of a smirk hiding behind his coffee mug?

Still, he refused to tell her his first name. _Come on._

“Maybe… I just like it when you call me ‘sir’,” he said nonchalantly, too quiet for anyone else to hear them over the din of the mess hall. More people roused themselves for breakfast aboard the Prydwen. He set his cup down and gathered his tray, finished his meal. He felt the familiar sensation of victory over this conversation as a rosy blush touched his recruit’s cheeks as she realized what he meant.

Leaving that hang between them, he returned to his morning duties as they awaited final orders for their mission today. The T-60 Power Armor he typically would be seen wearing was undergoing routine maintenance in the mechanics bay before they took to the field again to ensure everything was running at optimal range. He was eager to ensure everything was running smoothly before checking in with Elder Maxson shortly thereafter.

Knight Reed hurriedly finished her breakfast before she did a final gear-check as well. They’d calibrated and run diagnostic on her T-60 the night before after they’d arrived on the Prydwen. With so many people moving about at any given time, it was impossible to openly show signs of affection without being found out about their evolving relationship. Still, that hadn’t stopped the occasional fleeting touch as they worked in close quarters on her equipment, frustrating both parties playfully to a mild degree.

She was quick to fit herself into a fresh Power Armor BOS jumpsuit, zipping it up in the front as it hugged tightly to ensure ease of operation within the mechanical suit.

Weapons check showed all green for her equipment. Righteous Authority had been upgraded and boasted a more powerful scope with better range. An automatic 10mm with increased magazine capacity, comfort grip and glow sights was strapped to her person as well. The Power Armor itself could even carry a payload, rigged with additional ammo in case of emergencies, half a dozen fragmentation mines and a handful of frag grenades in easy-to-access hip compartments.

They’d be taking Fort Strong today.

A vertibird awaited their departure.

* * *

 

_Beep._

 

_Beep._

 

_Beep._

 

The noise was faint at first. _Beep._

 

Slowly it began to sound clearer, closer, more defined as time began to pass. _Beep._

 

The sharp note began to take on an irritating edge to it as it appeared to get louder and louder. _Beep._

A light came with it, flashing a mild orange on and off slowly in the corner of his vision in time with the noise. _Beep._

What were those, numbers? _No, data._ It was relaying data. An alert. It was an alert. _Beep._

 _‘System Calibration Advised’_ , it flashed. _Beep._

_‘Output at 62%’. Beep._

_‘Recalibration advised.' Beep.  
_

_'Structural integrity compromised.' Beep._

Danse looked about as he made note of the HUD in his helmet. His vision was blurry, unfocused. _Where was he?_ His ears were ringing, making things seem as if they were further away than they truly were. A drumming headache sat between his eyes and radiated out to his temples, flaring angrily as he began to move and find his bearings.

The earth was beneath him. He realized he was face-down on the ground. Moving his hands within Power Armored limbs he moved to push himself up and assess the situation. Stuck. _He was stuck_. Disoriented, he took a moment to pause and reassess. In his armor, he was hard-pressed to angle his body in any way that gave him additional feedback about what was going on. The arms still moved, so it couldn't be a fusion core problem.

With a hiss and click, he removed his helmet, twisting his body to determine what was wrong with the functionality of his Power Armor. _What the hell?_

Debris. Pieces of metal scattered about.

He was pinned under the main console of a vertibird, legs sunk beneath it's cold exterior in the sand of the beachfront, salty water lapping gently around him. Again he tried to move, tried to turn. Maybe if he could get one leg free it would be enough to wrench himself out of the entrapment.

In the wet sand, it was no use. Any force he applied in an attempt to push himself further away from the aircraft only resulted in his arms and limbs sinking uselessly into the swirling grains of infuriating beach. If only he hand someone to help him out of this.

_He did have someone._

It all came flashing back to him like a jolt of lightning.

The vertibird. Fort Strong. The mission.

They’d been posted to clear Fort Strong of a Super Mutant threat. Reports had indicated the presence of multiple hostiles and one Behemoth. The plan had been to attack from the air, as reports indicated that the Super Mutants below were out of ground-to-air missiles. Knight Reed had been stationed at the mini gun, T-60 freshly calibrated and operating perfectly. Paladin Danse had been providing suppressing fire and precision marksmanship in an attempt to take out the better armed members of the hostile group.

Intel had failed them.

A boulder the size of a car hit the side of the vertibird with a resounding crash. He remembered the noise. The way it pitched the vertibird hard to the side and sent equipment screaming with warnings. Their pilot had steadied it, banked to retreat from striking distance. It wasn’t fast enough. A giant piece of rock, a piece of the ruins below, crested up towards the aircraft with deadly accuracy. It knocked clear Engine #2.

Alarms screamed, red lights flashing. The aircraft went into a deadly spin from which the pilot could not recover. The centripetal force continued to build as the ground loomed up closer and closer, simply a blur of blue and browns as they continued their spin.

_They were crashing._

Danse had held on to the side of the aircraft, powered grip the only thing that kept him from slipping free. He’d blacked out with the force.

It was apparent all around them. The debris, the scorch marks from an explosion at the impact sight, the crackling fires that still sputtered here and there in the immediate area.

_They had indeed crashed._

“Reed!” he called out, coughing. _“Reed!”_

There was no response.

_Dammit!_

He struggled once more against the vertibird debris. It didn’t budge.

_Fuck!_


	17. Reckless

A flashing indicator in her helmet was the first thing she saw.

It recommended that she check her system for possible impact damage and reset accordingly. The little orange letters flicked on and off at bottom of her HUD.

With a groan, Knight Reed tried to sit up, heavily disoriented. _What happened?_ she tried to think over the drumming in her temples. _The boulder. The vertibird. Danse_.

Violently she sat up, and nearly threw up in her helmet from the vertigo. Carefully she paused, taking deep breaths, focusing until the spots in her vision stopped swirling. Slowly, she began to look around. A huge fire loomed in the distance, licking the sky with its orange and crimson flames. _Crash site._

_Shit!_

The recruit was ready to get up and run. Check for survivors. A little voice in her head gave her pause, told her to wait, to think. Super mutants. They were between her and it. An internal groan. Right, and that Behemoth, she remembered with thundering realization. A sickening feeling was in the pit of her stomach, and not just from the dizzying ordeal or falling from a crashing vertibird. If Danse and the pilot had survived, they would be coming under heavy fire. Super mutants had a bad taste for The Brotherhood of Steel. Suppose that happens when a faction declares war on an entire race.

Surprisingly enough, Reed’s weapons were right where she had left them. Frag mines and grenades too. Thank goodness for weapons checks pre-mission. Her Power Armor hummed gently as she got to her feet. An automatic systems test booted up interally, diagnosing the suit at 43% optimum condition. Well, it was better than 5%.

No doubt they had seen the explosion from the Prydwen and were scrambling units to secure the area. Time was a funny thing. Either there was too much of it, or just not enough.

Picking up Righteous Authority, the Knight pressed forward. There was a mission to complete. And so help any Super mutants that stood between her and her senior officer.

* * *

The ruins that proved to be an asset for the Super mutants soon became beneficial to her as well. Reed opened fire on the unsuspecting greenskins as she came up their rear flank, focusing hard to try and take out as many as she could with headshots before they got too close. A few wore helmets. _Smart._ Red glowing rounds burnt holes through scores of the creatures as the Knight relentlessly pulled the trigger. The Model T-60 was far more agile than the T-51. She was faster now. It was easier to dodge. A creature that rounded on her from behind a wall was met with a new hole in his chin that featured a sunroof all the way through his skull.

Outnumbered, the Brotherhood soldier ducked into a fairly intact two-story piece of ruin. Brick and mortar crumbled around her as the Super mutant Behemoth took aim at the much smaller human hiding inside. The structure held once. Held twice. It was groaning from the onslaught. Reed had to work quickly, hands moving fast.

Realizing where she was, the Super mutants began to call and growl, like dogs barking at a bush in an attempts to flush out their prey into the open.

“Oh, is little baby scared!” she heard a mutant shout out in its guttural voice. “Ah hah hah!”

_No,_ she thought to herself, _I’m just pissed off._

_Beep-tick-BOOM!_ The building shuddered again. Guess they hadn’t looked down to see if she’d rigged the entrance. Pieces of their comrade flew back at the greenskins waiting outside, giving them pause about trying to go after her.

Assuming that she had come into the building to hide was their first mistake. The second was assuming she was going to play by the rules. The third… assuming she wasn’t just a bit reckless.

Frag grenades hung together in some type of disturbing ribbon of potential energy, stuck frantically together by the Knight as the ruins continued to crumble around her. Military duct tape and some ingenuity. A little bit of luck and it might work. _Perfect._

Shouts and growls from around the building foretold of her ominous fate. The hostiles were beginning to outflank her, beginning to determine a way in. More shots were being fired into the ruins, catching the Power Armor but leaving it unharmed.

_Crap, crap, not yet!_ She reloaded all her weapons frantically, checking her escape routes. Blocked. The Behemoth was standing next to the building, growling menacingly, crouching down in an attempt to find the puny human that was causing such a fuss.

_Shit!_ There wasn’t enough time.

They rushed her as a flood of the brutes entered the ruins, finding their way into her cover on the main floor, pressing forward. Guns were blazing as they screamed for the meat on her bones.

_Beep-tick-BOOM!!_ The five remaining fragmentation mines went off just as they reached her.

She’d taken a risk and placed the armed explosives around her armor as a last desperate attempt to take out as many as she could if they got too close. The explosion tossed the Power Armor violently to the side. Systems inside the equipment screamed, flashing warnings about critical condition in all system processes. The armour plating on the legs had been bent backwards at a horrific angle, exposing the framework underneath. Shrapnel peppered the surface of the steel and aluminum plating, creating huge gouges and slices across the surface.

_Dammit!_


	18. Still Reckless

_Fucking Super mutants._

Reed coughed and shook her head slightly as a cloud of dust was lodged free from between the bricks, crumbling annoyingly onto the Knight.

The hulking Behemoth outside of the building leaned down to investigate the status of their prey after that explosion, as well as its comrades, a low rumbling noise like that of a question drumming deep from within its throat. The creature was massive and formidable. Even the bullets that had caught it with during their first pass with the vertibird had barely made many holes in its tough hide. A few spots were weeping slow trickles of blood, but nothing that might sway the battle one way or another. _Where did these creatures even come from?_

It was why Reed had tried to formulate a different kind of plan to deal with the horrific odds of this situation being stacked against her. Thinking outside of the box. That was the key to surviving this encounter. No one had been there to tell her it was a foolish plan to even try, no one to try and talk her out of it. Now her Power Armor was what looked like a pile of salvage crumpled up against the corner, badly damaged from the explosion and in serious need of repair. If any repair could be made to it at all.

The Knight was thankful she hadn’t been in it at the time of the explosion, having escaped to the upper story only moments before the mutants had rushed in. It had been too close for comfort.

Crouching on the second floor of the building now, she scoped out her target through a nearby hole in the building’s exterior. The Behemoth was below. _Damn, had he always been that big?_ He seemed smaller from up in the air. Righteous Authority hung at her back, 10mm automatic pistol at her side, a strip of fragmentation grenades taped together draped hauntingly around her neck. Decked in only her fatigues, she was prey for any stray bullets that might happen to come her way. She’d have to be fast. And lucky. _Damn lucky._

Like the first time stepping off a diving board, the Knight’s heart was pounding wildly in her chest. Fear crawled through her veins like a cold reminder of what she was about to do, or at least attempt to do. Bravery had never been about a lack of fear. Fear was healthy. Fear was a way of informing a person of a potential threat, of keeping them alert, of keeping them aware of what was going on around them. Fear was okay, as long as it didn't keep a person from doing the right thing. She swallowed hard, took a deep breath... and jumped off the building.

Time seemed both slow and fast. The jump took her right to her target faster than she would have liked, landing precisely on the bent-over Behemoth. It had been her one shot, her only real chance for this to work. Still, there was a lot left to accomplish before they could celebrate whether or not this plan of was even remotely achievable.

Without her Power Armor, she was nimble, fast. The creature rose beneath her in surprise, standing up with a growl. Time slowed. She focused. With movements faster than she imagined possible, she hurled the string of fragmentation grenades over the creature’s neck from behind. She pulled, hard, strapping the ends together behind him as securely as she could.

By now the hulking Super mutant was standing tall, turning this way and that, trying to reach for the puny human that was behind his head. He bellowed in frustration.

_Damn, that is a long way down._ She held her breath, waited for a moment, grabbed hold of the crudely linked pins and jumped.

The Behemoth didn’t even realize what was about to happen. Until it was too late.

_Tick-BOOOOM!_

Simultaneously, the fragmentation grenades went off, strung about the Behemoth’s neck like some necklace of death. The hostile’s head was blown catastrophically from its body in a moment of glorious and powerful combustion, pieces of it scattering this way and that like a morbid rain.

Reed hit the ground. Hard. Any attempt to roll with the motion was useless. _Fucking pavement_. So that’s what it felt like to fall without Power Armor. It sucked. Something cracked. Not sure exactly what, but that hurt. Righteous Authority came up quickly out of instinct, at least with one hand. The other arm seared with pain and wouldn’t rise. _Great._

The Knight had escaped the frying pan only to fall right into the fire. Behind her, the Behemoth collapsed with an earth-thundering sound as it slumped and oozed vast quantities of blood all over the roadway. At least one thing had gone according to plan. Half a dozen other Super Mutants still remained, however, and Gladen felt about as safe as a settler falling into a Raider camp. At night. Wearing only pajamas. With an apparently broken arm. After pissing them off first.

_Yeah, about that safe._

Taking only a short second to get her bearings and direction, she threw herself quickly behind cover. A squeak caught on her lips, arm mindfully throbbing in the background of her thoughts. Carefully, she tried to make a fist. _Yeoch! Nope._ Without the other hand, she couldn’t possibly pull herself up to a roof again like behind. _Okay. Plan E._ She could run. Run where? The recruit was quick without armor. Ah, but bullets were faster. _Right._ Looking down, all she had was her pistol and laser rifle. A power weapon. But she lacked any semblance of armor to take on a frontal assault. A few bullets and she’d be done for.

“Ad victorium!” she heard being shouted in the distance. “For the Brotherhood!”

It was faint, but there. Paladin Danse.

A lump caught in her throat, threatening to close up with relief. Laser rifle blasts echoed through the ruins, drawing their fire. Quickly, Knight Reed scrambled, mind working fast. She understood a diversion when she saw one.

Free of Power Armor, she was fast. Not just kind of fast, but markedly fast. Each step jostled her limp arm as she ran, but the sharp stabs of pain were merely a reminder that she wasn’t dead yet. She'd deal with it later over a shot of whiskey and a Stimpak. The fire of the vertibird was in the immediate vicinity, not more than a dozen yards away. Turning a corner, she had the rear flank of an unsuspecting Super mutant. Even without armor, she took on the beast. He hadn’t even seen her coming before he was filled with holes, toppling to the side like some grotesque ragdoll that bled.

The Vault dweller skidded to a halt as she rounded the last fallen building, chest heaving as she gasped for air.

_Shit, shit, double-shit._

Paladin Danse was indeed alive, and horrifically pinned underneath the remnants of the vertibird debris. He appeared in the sand as merely a torso, legs lost beneath the burning wreckages. He had propped himself up on elbows as he fired in the direction of oncoming hostiles. His helmet had been ripped off, craned to see, to be able to fight. A tactical move that improved his aim, and left him extremely vulnerable. An uneven trade-off. One stray bullet, one well-placed shot and he’d be taken out. Yet he couldn't stop his attackers if he couldn't see them to aim.

Danse held up an arm in front of his face, firing with the arm propped against the ground. His luck had held enough to have gained him a rifle. It had washed up beside him after struggling to get free. It had given him a chance to hold his own. _Dammit, where was their support?_

If the hostiles got to him, he was surely as good as dead. He couldn’t run. Even in his Power Armor, it would only be a matter of time before he ran out of ammunition and they would strike without mercy. He continued firing anyway. If they were going to take him, he was going to take as many as those bastards with him as he could.

Reed frantically took one last look around before dashing to her own funeral. Wearing only fatigues, she was even more exposed than her pinned mentor. Something then caught her eye. A light amidst the darkness of their situation. _Was that really just sitting there?_ The Knight paused.

“No. Fucking. Way,” she said as she found herself beside one of the Super mutant barricades. Lady lucky had a weird way of showing up at the perfect moment, it seemed. That was a nice change compared to how luck usually went on the battlefield. Without hesitation, Righteous Authority was tossed aside and she picked up the replacement weapon with some difficulty. It was bulky, awkward. Heavy. They’d left it propped up against the sandbags and ammunitions boxes. It made sense to leave it here. It was easy to grab in case anyone need it. Like her. Like _right now._

_“Danse!”_ she screamed desperately over the sounds of battle. There was a pause in the rifle fire. “Helmet!”

In her head, time slowed. _Tick, tick, tick_. Each second felt like it took an hour. A handful of Super Mutants had begun to rush at her senior officer. _Tick, tick, tick._ They ran in slow motion in her mind. She waited, finger hovering over the trigger. _No, just one more second._ _He needs one more second._ Mentally she recalled how long it took her to properly fasten her own helmet. To put it in place. To turn it a 1/8 th of an inch. To latch the coupler and the familiar hiss of safety. It all happened within a split second. She held her breath. They'd reached him.

And she pulled the trigger.

The Fatman Nuke landed perfectly amidst the mass of green bodies. The light of the explosion could be seen before any sound was heard. A dim boom soon erupted into chaos, wind and heat. The shockwave took the recruit by surprise, throwing her violently backwards. Reed coughed in the dirt, dust and debris, the wind having been knocked right out of her. The heat was intense even at a distance. There wasn’t any Geiger counter nearby, but had there been, it would have crackled and squealed in disapproval.

As the initial explosion settled, she was already up and sprinting. With a jump, she cleared the sandbags of the barricade and rushed to aid her senior officier.

Debris from the vertibird had been shifted in the blast, but not enough to free the Paladin’s legs completely. Reed’s knees nearly buckled as she reached him.

His helmet was fastened securely in place.

“Danse! Danse, can you hear me?” she asked as she knelt down beside him, trying to unlatch his helmet as best she could with only one hand. The young woman made a face as she flinched. Everything was still hot to the touch. After a moment, she succeeded and breathed such a sigh of relief.

The Paladin coughed and gave his head a slight shake, groaning as if he regretted making any type of quick movements. He was alive, and sore. Maybe a minor concussion. _Probably_ a mild concussion, considering the circumstance.

“… Reed?” he asked, blinking up at her in surprise.

“Oh thank god!” she cried out, wrapping her good arm around him as best she could, ignoring the few hot spots still left on his armor. “I thought you were dead!”

He blinked in surprise. “It would take more than a vertibird crash and some greenskins to take me out, I promise,” he tried to reassure, twisting his body to lay more on his side as he put a careful hand around her. He was getting better at doing the whole hug thing.

Knight Reed sat back, clearing her throat and wiping away at her eyes quickly. “The area has been secured, sir,” she stated matter-of-factly.

The Paladin regarded her with confusion. “Secured? What… How?” he glanced around, noticing the distinct lack of enemy fire. There had been a Behemoth, and easily two dozen Super mutants. “And where is your Power Armor? And your weapons? Why are you in fatigues?”

The young woman put a hand on her head, slightly dizzy. “I took out as many as I could with the rifle from the rear flank, but had to fall back. Set up mines as a diversion. Used my Power Armor for bait, rigged it to blow. Took the frag grenades, linked them together and tied them around the big guy’s neck. Took him out. Your distraction saved me after that, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to get out,” she explained as best she could. Her mouth felt dry after all that had happened. “We make a pretty good team, sir," she said, feeling suddenly exhausted after the ordeal.

“I… don’t know what to say. ‘Good work, soldier’ sounds inadequate. I can’t believe you would take on a situation like that by yourself, without backup,” Danse said. His voice took on the slightest of stern tones as he continued, “You should have radioed for help. Don’t you know how tactically improbable that was. It was foolish, and needlessly dangerous.”

Inside he felt a mixture of both pride, and a desire to enforce the importance of not acting recklessly when faced with a difficult situation. He sighed.

“I’m glad we made it out,” he said in all honesty. His head was throbbing. He rubbed his forehead slightly with his Power Armored hand, noticing the familiar sensation of a concussion.

“Oh _shit_ , Danse! You’re hurt!” Knight Reed said, seeing the Paladin’s hand covered in blood. There was confusion on his face as he looked at his hand, then looked at her. Gladen looked down at herself. _Oh shit, I’m hurt?_ That was a lot of blood for just one bullet wound. That would probably explain why she was feeling woozy all of a sudden. Reed put her good hand to her torso, applying pressure approximately to where it was coming from. Blood oozed through her fingers. _Well, that wasn’t good._

A vertibird’s propellers could be heard approaching in the distance.

Suddenly she felt an arm wrap around her and pull her carefully down, Paladin Danse laying her on her back as he took the responsibility of applying pressure to her wound. His hand held firm against her torso, harder than she could’ve managed by herself. _So this is what it took to get his hands on her again, huh?_

Paladin Danse had never felt so helpless than he did in that moment.

_Oh please no..._ “Reed, take it easy now,” his voice wasn’t the senior officer anymore. It was Danse, her traveling companion and mentor. “Mission isn’t over yet, Knight. It looks like we don’t have a Stimpak right now, so just take it easy. Support is on its way here and we’ll get you patched up. It's going to take a few minutes. I need you to stay talking to me, though, okay? It’s not that bad, but I need you to work with me on this one.”

She nodded. “Yes sir, I will, sir,” she said, although the slight slurring of her words betrayed her deteriorating condition. What had they called that before? _Shock?_ Her vision began to swim slightly as she blinked, the very edges of her sightline darkening into a tunnel.

Was it suddenly getting cold out here or was it just her?

 “Reed? Dammit… _Reed!_ You need to keep your eyes open, Reed. That’s an _order._ _Reed?!”  
_

She tried to obey, she really did. It wasn't working.

_Shit._


	19. The Past

Smoke curled up into the still air from between his fingertips, the tip of a cigarette glowing a soft red amidst the low-light of Paladin Danse’s quarters. A single desk lamp glowed dimly. It had been a few months since he’d touched the damn things, his cigarettes. Out in the field, out on missions, one didn’t have time to think about or have the spare resources for such trivial things as cigarettes or alcohol. Not when there were more important matters to attend to and focus on.

A small dot of ash tumbled off the tip as it slowly smoldered, working its way down the length of the rolled tobacco. A hand brought the filter to his lips, taking a drag before resting the cigarette idly there for a moment. Smoking was heavily restricted when aboard the airship. However, he was of no mood to stand in the wind of the observation deck.

Calloused fingers slowly turned the holotape over in his hands yet again, reading the front of it once more. Scribbled in someone’s messy handwriting were the words: “ _Hi Honey!”_ right across the yellow-faded label, barely legible. With a click and snap, Danse returned the holotape to the Pip-Boy. The Paladin took another drag of his cigarette, leaning back in his chair as he stared at the advanced pre-war tech sitting on his desk.

He hit _‘Play’_ again. A male voice came over the audio speaker of the Pip-Boy.

 _“*Feedback sound* Oops. Ha ha ha. No, no. Little fingers away. There we go…_ ”

The holotape crackled slightly. Old, worn. A majority of the words were still discernible amidst the feedback and white noise. It went through the entire recording. Little noises of an infant peppered the background in spots. He continued to listen.

_“… There will be changes, sure. Things we’ll need to adjust to. I’ll rejoin the civilian workforce. You’ll shake the dust off your law degree…”_

_Was that why she had fallen so easily in step within a military outpost, having been enrolled previously?_ He tapped his cigarette slightly, knocking the ash from the tip. The Paladin stared at the cherry-red ember glowing at the end for several moments before idly snuffing it out in a nearby ashtray next to his monitor. He knitted his fingers together behind his head, leaning back in the chair as the holotape continued to play.

_“…But everything we do, no matter how hard… we do it for our family._

_Now say goodbye, Shaun…. Bye bye? Say bye bye…?... *the tape fizzled and cracks*… e love yo…”_

The holotape clicked and fell silent.

He recalled her story again, back when she’d first joined at them at the police station. She was calm, cool, collected. She wasn’t spooked, wasn’t panicked. Observant. Incredibly astute. Willing to help without asking for caps or payment. Followed orders, didn’t question. Yet she still had a kind way about her, not hard nor needlessly abrasive even when things got rough. Hell, she even tried her best to make amends with Knight Rhys a couple of times, no easy task.

Yet she had been alone during that. During all of this.

Danse thought about lighting another cigarette as his thoughts continued to analyze the events of the past several weeks or so. About their missions. About the settlements. Her goings on about the Commonwealth. Wherever she went, people remembered her time and time again. That she had never allowed herself to be the victim in all this. Gladen hadn’t run back to the Vault when life got hard. Hadn’t given up in the midst of it all.

He had always felt inclined to keep an eye on his recruit, promising it was with the most professional of intentions. Now, however… with months having gone by as they worked side by side, mission by mission, matters between the two had changed.

Idle hands lit another cigarette in the dim light. He exhaled softly as he stared up at the ceiling, still leaning back in his chair.

At first it had sat strangely with him. The Brotherhood had always been his driving force in all things. Absolutely there were connections between his brothers and sisters in arms. The kind of connection that kept everyone on the lookout for one another’s backs. Yet with Reed… Reed it had been different. He’d found himself watching her more closely. Being more mindful of her safety. Hell, he had even given her more leeway in addressing him. _Perhaps it hadn’t been as professional from the start as he thought._

Even more complicated had been matters of her life before now. He frowned slightly in the privacy of his quarters. It was a matter he had given much thought of as of late.

Smoke curled gently upwards, rolling in a slight draft. Danse drew another breath of the strongly flavoured tobacco. It didn’t taste as good as he remembered.

Matters between him and the Knight had, he hoped, remained private. Of them spending their nights on missions in the same bedroll more frequently. Of the brief interactions between the two when no one was around. A touch. A kiss. A squeeze of the hand. A handful of times having led to something more.

Brown eyes settled once more on the holotape on his desk, still sitting in the playback system of the Pip-Boy.

She’d had someone once. A family. A husband. A child. He’d poured over historical documents in his training with the Brotherhood. About life before the war. About what life had been like back then. In all honesty, he had never been truly able to picture it. Not the way the texts and books had said. And yet here, in his very squad, was someone from the past that had lived it, breathed the clean air, drank the pure water without a worry.

Until the bombs fell. Until it killed everyone she loved and held dear.

At first he had felt somewhat amiss in pursuing interest in Reed, in seeking companionship with someone so new to this world, someone who had once had a family.

Yet that had changed over 200 years ago. Terrible things had befallen nearly everyone in the Commonwealth. Everyone had lost someone. Even the Paladin was able to recall instances of losing close companions and mentors as the years drew on.

Maybe… maybe that’s why he had told her, in the end. Risked it all to make his feelings known. Had she rejected him, it would have gone back to simply professional roles within the ranks of the Brotherhood. But, he was glad she had felt an attachment as well over these several months.

Danse might never be able to replace what she lost. Of that he was certain. The past was the past. He couldn’t recreate the life she’d once known. A happy life before the war. But perhaps he could try. Do his best in the here and now. Keep her safe. Keep her cared for. Let her know that she’s not alone. That’s all he wanted. A chance to show her that she’s not in this alone.

Tough fingers snuffed out his cigarette slightly harder than he meant to as it crushed beneath the force.

Still, perhaps someday, this life would start to feel more like home to the time-lost Vault Dweller. He hoped so. He’d like to see where their roads would take them as time went on. He'd like to show her. To be there with her.

A light tapping of knuckles rang against the metal door of his quarters.

“Paladin Danse?” a voice called out, the latch on the ratchetted door unbolting and a young recruit peeking their head in.

“What is it?” he asked, wincing a bit as he tone came across a little too hard. He rubbed his eyes for a moment and softened his tone. “What can I assist you with, Recruit?”

“It’s Knight Reed, sir. She’s waking up, I believe, sir,” the Recruit nearly stammered. He opened the door completely, gesturing in the general direction of the infirmary.

“Outstanding,” Paladin Danse said with a sigh of relief. It took only a few scarce moments before he was on his way to the medical bay.

Silently, the Paladin reminded himself to walk calmly.


	20. Nice to Meet You

_If someone could turn down the lights, or the pounding in her head, that’d be great._

Sounds were distant, fuzzy. It felt like she was trapped in some giant drum. Each noise made her head feel like it was about to crack open.

Coming to, she realized something was amiss. Groggy, dizzy, couldn’t open her eyes due to the light sensitivity. Mentally she did a self check. Mouth: dry, sandpaper. Head: painful all over. Arms: filled with lead. Everywhere else: painful or numb. Where she was: Not a clue.

The mission. A vertibird. The crash. Falling. Hostiles everywhere. An explosion. Blood. _Her_ blood. _Right._ _What had happened after that…?_

Sounds were starting to get less fuzzy, more clear. Voices. Footsteps. A door closing, then opening. The sound of an engine spinning up in the background. _Ah, the Prydwen._ That made sense.

“…. which explained the massive trauma,” a voice was saying. Authoritative. Medical. Knight Cade, resident doctor to the crew of the Prydwen. “It took a while to stop the bleeding, but once we removed the shrapnel tangled up in her liver the task became easier. We had to resort to some stitching due to the quantity of Stimpaks and blood transfussions she’d already received. We didn’t want to risk an OD on chems in such a touch-and-go situation. Look like she may be out of the woods if she continues to remain stable. We’ll be able to do more in the next 24 hours, once her body has had a chance to rest and stabilize.”

Someone was scribbling on a clipboard in the background. _Were pens always that irritating?_

A machine somewhere beeped.

 _Stitches? Maybe she’d earn some street credit after all,_ she thought to herself, nearly wincing. How could thoughts be painful? Everything in her body was on high-alert. No wonder the rushing, throbbing headache.

“I am grateful for your help, Knight Cade,” Paladin Danse’s familiar voice filled the room. Gladen felt more at ease immediately. If he was here, everything was fine. “We were lucky that you were of such a close proximity.”

The banter between the two continued for a short while, discussing a few of the details of the events in a protocol kind of way. Records and reports and all that. Such was the way of The Brotherhood. Heroics and victory, battle-hardened veterans against the scum of the Commonwealth, followed by rounds of paperwork and reports for everyone.

Reed wanted to ask for someone to turn off all the lights and to talk more quietly. Carefully she moved her tongue around in her mouth and realized that alone was a difficult task. Formulating a whole question might be a bit of a leap for the moment. Water was both a delightful concept and a dreadful idea. A twitching of her stomach suggested she might make herself sick if she were to send anything down there. _Maybe later.  
_

Knight Reed managed to lift up a heavy forearm and rest it across her eyes, dimming the light a bit as she became more fully aware of her surroundings.

“Ah, you are awake,” a pleasant female voice said to her left. One of the medical Scribes that assisted Knight Cade directly. “We thought you were starting to come to. You’ve had quite the adventure.”

“Knight Reed, its Knight Cade,” a second voice appeared next to the Scribe. “Do you know where you are?”

“Prydwen,” Reed managed to say softly, swallowing as best she could against the rasp in her throat.

“Excellent,” the resident medical doctor seemed pleased. Someone wrote something down, scratching again with the annoyingly loud writing instrument. “You’ve suffered significant blood loss and a sizable laceration to your liver. You nearly bled to death by the time we got to you. We were able to perform rudimentary surgery to remove the debris and stop the bleeding. We utilized several Stimpaks during the procedure, as the damage was quite severe. Overly high doses of recovery medication is inadvisable for a trauma patient in such a short period of time. We’ve administered several blood packs and stitched you up in the meantime.

“You’ve also suffered a broken arm, the upper humerus, which is partially mended. Overall, you’re quite battered and bruised, but alive. We will be able to administer another round of recovery medication in the next 24 to 48 hours, depending on your red and white blood cell counts. During which time, you are under my designation and are to follow instructions until cleared for duty. Is that understood?”

This was the Brotherhood she was familiar with. The Knight couldn’t help a smile despite the pain. “Yes, sir,” she rasped gently, good arm still shielding her eyes. No wonder the other arm felt like lead and didn’t work; They’d fastened it in a secure sling that was strapped to her torso.

“Good. Your orders are to rest. I know you may be inclined to get back into the field, soldier, but we can’t have you at half capacity,” he ordered, scribbling away his signature on a piece of paper.

The Knight wasn’t about to argue. She felt, quite frankly, like death warmed over. It was difficult to relax as the Scribes completed their routine of taking her vitals and putting her through a series of questions. Confirmation was made on the topic of a mild concussion being suspected. Once they had concluded, they instructed her to get some rest if she was able to. They wouldn’t be able to give her another dose of pain medication for another couple of hours. It was doubtful the drumming in her head would let her get that much rest anyway.

The room fell quiet.

“Who leaves lights on for someone with a concussion?” she said quietly to herself with a frustrated tone.

 _Click._ Darkness. Relief.

Gladen sighed appreciatively as she lowered her arm, opening her eyes tentatively in the dim room. Nothing on the Prydwen was ever really dark due to the ambient diffused lighting. It was leagues better than direct overhead lighting, however.

“Danse,” she breathed with a soft smile. She was so glad to see that he was alright after the crash and the altercation with the hostiles. He appeared to be fine from what she was able to see.

Even without his Power Armor, the Paladin was an imposing figure. Even more so when viewed from the point of an infirmary bed. Yet here in the privacy of the medical bay his posture wasn’t quite what it usually was. It wasn’t the imposing figure reading out mission stats to an eager group of recruits. It wasn’t the familiar body language of when they concluded a mission with success and were going over their report details. The edges seemed softer, the muscles no longer kept at attention.

Despite the pain meds causing slight alterations to her perception, it was still easy for her to read. _Paladin Danse is holding back. Hesitation._

“I’m not broken,” the Knight said softly, reassuringly.

Looking around, her mentor in arms pulled up a chair beside her bed. Danse looked down at the figure laid out before him, now covered in warm blankets and bandages, but only a few hours ago had been covered in such vast amounts of blood as they worked to save her life. They hadn’t let him see too much of her then, probably due to the unknown outcome at that time. Still, it ran in his mind. The scene from the beach as well. Having to clean the blood off the arm and hand of his Power Armor. When it was a hostile’s blood, it was easy. It hadn’t been so easy this time.

He gently took her hand, placing it between both of his as he sat beside her. There were so many things he wanted to say in that moment, yet nothing came out.

A soft silence hung between them. It wasn’t unlike the silence they shared often. During missions. At camp. On the road. It was a comfortable silence the two had developed.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, almost a whisper. He squeezed her hand gently. Her fingers were colder than they normally were.

Gladen went to shake her head, immediately regretting the notion. She drew a soft breath to easy the drumming in her head before squeezing his hand in return.

“No, it wasn’t your fault,” the Knight said, managing to even sound assertive.

Paladin Danse looked at her for a moment before looking down slightly as if sorting through what he wanted to say. _It was my job to ensure the responsibility of the mission. I didn’t get the right intel. Someone else failed at their job but I should have kept you safe._ _It shouldn’t have gone like that. I should have done more._

“Reed, you almost died today,” he said, surprising even himself as the words came out.

 _That was true._ “You are not the reason I almost died today, Danse,” she responded after a moment. “You’re the reason I lived.”

If anyone was watching, it didn’t matter. He leaned over and kissed her carefully, almost delicately, taking a moment to be thankful that she was once again conscious. No longer the image of the limp and pale figure in his arms on the battlefield. She kissed him back less carefully, almost insisting that she was, in fact, not broken. It was reassuring to feel the warmth of her lips once again. After a moment, they parted. Fortunately, no one had been around to witness the two. If they had, they'd deal with it then.

Still holding her good hand, he touched it gently to his cheek as he remained beside her.

His mind took him back to that moment when she walked in as a civilian at the compound during the ghoul attack. She’d been fearless, skilled, unafraid. Graceful. Beautiful. Strong. That very same woman now laid before him, every bit the same person he had met all that time ago. This was only a moment in time, terrible situation that they would work through. They’d be more careful next time. Better prepared. He'd see to that.

A week from now and they’d be back on the road together again. Even now, she’d still managed to smile at him. He felt truly fortunate that she’d found them that night in Cambridge.

“Michael,” he said as he continued to hold her hand in the half-light. His gaze came up to meet hers.

“My name. It's Michael.”


	21. Recovery

“Don’t be ridiculous, Dans—Paladin Danse,” she said, exasperated. “I’m not going to take over your quarters, sir.”

Gladen was sitting up in the infirmary, arm still strapped to her chest as she waited for evaluation.

The fatigues they had given her prior to the beachfront battle were long gone, having been cut off to gain access to her torso and keep her from dying and all. Instead they’d given her button-front shirt to accommodate the arm-sling and some type of cross between army issued breeches and medical-style pants in the meantime. _Comfortable, but so many pockets._ It made her feel uncomfortable to be wearing a ‘sick person’s’ outfit. She wasn’t sick. It was frustrating for someone normally used to be fiercely independant.

“Knight Cade says you’re on two more days of rest before returning to light duties,” Paladin Danse said, standing in the doorway, donning his familiar Power Armor. It was cleaned up and repaired already. It was funny how he almost seemed to be two completely different people depending on what he was wearing. The authoritative voice, the imposing posture.

He held up his finger, cutting her off as she tried to protest.

“ _Light_. Duties,” he said with a raise of his eyebrow. “And you will take over my quarters temporarily. That’s an order. With the activities going on throughout the Prydwen, the probability of you getting an entirely restful sleep and recuperating while bunked with the other recruits has a lower success rate. If you and I are to be continuing our mission operatives together, I require you to be in optimal condition.”

Reed sighed. The likelihood of winning an argument against her senior officer would also have a low success rate if she tried right now too. _Fine,_ she admitted in her head. So long as this didn’t interfere with her reputation amongst the other recruits. She didn’t want anybody thinking she was getting preferential treatment by taking over her senior officer’s quarters. As well as that, she didn’t want anybody getting the wrong idea about her and Paladin Danse with her occupying his quarters.

“Healing is going well,” Knight Cade announced as he continued to look over the recruit sitting up in front of him. “We’ll remove the stitches tomorrow and you should be well enough to continue without further medical intervention after that. Paladin Danse is correct. Two more days of rest and we will see what light duties you can handle. It may take up to a week to start feeling like your old self again. Perfectly normal. For now, you have leave to be escorted to your respective bunking arrangements, as per your senior officer. In the meantime, you have leave only to travel within the quarters, to the lavatory and to the mess hall and back. Should you be found elsewhere on the Prydwen, you will be returned to your quarters and reprimanded accordingly. Are we clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Knight Reed said, frankly a bit surprised. Not being ordered to remain cooped up in a single room with nothing to do? That was a pleasant agreement.

Sitting on the bed was one thing. Even sitting up, talking, interacting. It took little strength and little dexterity to accomplish those tasks. However, as the Knight set her feet to the floor and began to make her way out of the infirmary, it became clear why the recommendation was further rest over the next couple of days.

Tremors developed in her legs as she walked in slow, cautious steps. The stitches in her torso suddenly reminding her they were there with a flare of tightness and pain. Her head had begun to slowly pound again, the migraine from the night before ever-so-slowly crawling up the back of her skull like a predator ready to pounce.

Gladen paused at the doorway, holding onto the frame as she steadied herself.

“Everything alright?” Paladin Danse asked, noticing her sudden change in complexion.

“That took a little more out of me than I thought,” his recruit explained. “Give me a minute. I’ll be fine in just a minute.”

Danse shook his head slightly, took her hand from the doorframe, looped it over his shoulder and picked the unsteady Knight up with ease.

Gladen hadn’t been expecting that. At first she nearly protested, nearly insisted that he put her down. The words never came. Instead she simply held on to the Paladin. She was grateful that she hadn’t been forced to ask for assistance. The idea of walking the entire length of the hallway once she'd reached the door had been intimidating. If she hadn't known better, she'd have accused the Paladin of reading her mind.

“What do you think they’ll say after seeing you carrying me around like _this?”_ she tried to jest lightly, voice quiet and for his ears only.

“Let them talk,” he responded without hesitation. The words caught her a little off-guard. Pleasantly so. Perhaps he was becoming more comfortable with matters between them.

The quarters were simple, straightforward. Lighting was dim, diffused and nothing like the medbay. He set her down carefully after they entered the room, being mindful of how steady she was, holding onto her until she sat on the bed. It was apparent that he didn’t spend entirely that much time in this room. A Paladin’s role within the Brotherhood was a busy one to fill and left him with little recreational time. Perhaps that was why the senior officers always seemed a bit uptight. It was doubtful many of them had non-military hobbies.

“Given the state you are currently in,” he said, familiar senior officer tone filtering through, “I am tempted to revoke authorization to walk to any location on the Prydwen until further evaluation.”

The Knight sighed as she touched her head, as if trying to use sheer will to make the return of her throbbing headache go away. “Normally I would argue, but I think your analysis may be all too accurate right now,” she winced. The second round of pain meds were thankfully starting to kick in. It wouldn’t be such a sharp pain over the next little while. She’d be able to tolerate it in the meantime.

“I’ll come check on you between rounds to ensure you are alright,” he said, taking a last glance around the room as if determining anything he may have missed. “Until then, orders are to rest, recover and heal up so we can get back out on the field, soldier. If I find you outside of these quarters, I will personally return you. Understood?”

“Affirmative, sir,” the Knight smiled as she pictured the scene in her head, knowing he very well would drag her back here without question.

Paladin Danse took a moment to ensure she had everything she needed. Perhaps he was still slightly hesitant to leave her. It looked as if he might even kiss her goodbye before he left for duties with the way he seemed to be stalling. Instead, he simply touched her cheek gently with a Power Armored hand and pulled the blanket more comfortably over her. It was moments like this that seemed so touching and enjoyable to witness. Normally the Paladin was strong, a voice commanding attention in the chaos of a battle, able to take on a multitude of events and issues at any given moment without hesitation. Yet it seemed as if he was still learning what it meant to not have to use those traits in times such as these. To let go of being his title and simply be human for once instead of a figure of authority. To be Michael Danse instead of Paladin Danse. _How long had he been in the role of Paladin anyway?_ It must have been a long time.

Soon the sound of his footsteps departing were lost in the rumblings and metallic rhythms of the giant airship. It lived, it breathed, a being unto itself. The very walls seemed to have a character all their own.

It was easier to fall asleep now. No longer under the glaring lights of the infirmary. No longer being poked and prodded every few hours. A comfortable bed that reminded her of Danse.

And soon they would be back in the field.

* * *

Company could always be found in the mess hall at nearly all hours aboard the Prydwen if one was looking.

Shifts typically rotated in the early morning or in the late evening at regular scheduled intervals. It was best to come before the morning shift came in, before the majority of the airship’s population roused with rumbling stomachs, if a person wanted first dibs at the days rations and a preferred spot at the tables.

Time had gotten away from the Knight with all the sleep, her internal clock all discombobulated and in serious need of a reset. A few days on the road would do wonders for getting back to feeling like her normal self. Without windows, the Prydwen always seemed in a state of dusk, time easily lost with all the comings and goings. Still, from what she could tell, it had been three days since the incident. Tomorrow she would meet with Proctor Quinlin for some research and record-keeping projects before she was cleared for field work. _Light_ duties, after all.

Reed flexed her hand experimentally as she sat at the mess hall table, happy to have use of the arm once more. They’d given her the last round of her recovery medication the day before, as well as removing the stitches. The ache in her arm had disappeared and function was returning steadily. Weakness still lingered here and there, but mobility was beginning to return to normal as time went on. Stimpaks were an incredible invention. High doses like what she had received sure could pack a wallop, but the results were fantastic. _Maybe it really would only be a week before they were back in the field._ She hoped so.

Still, it felt good to be up and moving. The Knight had even been able to dress herself in normal fatigues again. The other apparel she’d donned the past few days made her feel like some sort of sick patient, useless and something to be doted upon. The tight-fitting military issued jumpsuit suited her much better.

Several recruits began to filter into the hall. A few flashed pleasant smiles and gestures her way. Nothing was a secret within the Brotherhood. The fall of a comrade or an injury during battle was often shared amongst the ranks instead of hidden away. Information was always shared. Intel was their best way to ensure success, even if that meant analyzing situations that had gone bad. It really was like a large family. Everyone cared about one another. A large, stern, serious, paperwork friendly family that just happened to be complete badasses in their respective fields.

Proctor Teagan entered with Paladin Danse walking shortly behind him. The weapons master was gesturing in what appeared to be in a friendly debate, tapping his finger on the palm of his hand as if to make a point about something. The Paladin shook his head slightly in friendly disagreement. It looked as if he had said the words: _‘That level of explosive would be incredibly helpful.’_

The two ended up joining Knight Reed once they realized she was there. Danse seemed to have been surprised to see her there on her own, dressed in regular fatigues, looking as if she might even take to the field at a moments notice if need be. His look might have been missed by anybody else, but Reed had caught the flash of a smile that caught his features for only a second. _He should smile more often. It looks good on him._

“I hear you single-handedly took on the entire Fort Strong by yourself,” Proctor Teagan said as he set his tray down beside the Vault dweller. Danse sat opposite of them both with his own meal, dressed in his orange Power Armor jumpsuit. No doubt he would be in his T-60 shortly after breakfast as he took on the days list of duties.

Reed groaned inwardly, glancing slightly to her superior officer. No doubt he’d written up his report on the matters that had unfolded on the point of taking Fort Strong. There must have also been others who could testify to at least some of the events. Plus no doubt there had been a BOS-wide review of protocols involved with the mission. Everyone must have heard about what had taken place. It made sense. The fact it was now public knowledge amongst the entire Brotherhood would make things interesting for the next little while. Reed was not one to boast, nor did she typically enjoy the glory side of matters within a military posting. Some did. Some basked in moments of heroism. It made Reed want to crawl under a table.

“It’s good to see you too, Proctor Teagan,” she responded pleasantly instead, smiling in her kind way.

The conversation between the two continued for a time. Teagan continued to ask about mostly weapon and arms related topics. Reed redirected the conversation away whenever it came to the events that had happened at Fort Strong. Apparently he’d fixed up Righteous Authority and had it waiting in lock-up for when she was released to regular duties. That was a lovely bit of news, and one she was sincerely thankful the hear. It made it all the more important for her to focus on getting back to her regular duties. Being cooped up aboard the Prydwen was starting to feel like she had an itch that she couldn’t quite scratch.

Danse stole glances at her occasionally when others weren’t looking. The color had returned to her cheeks, he noticed. Her eyes were brighter than the other day as well, no longer heavy and lidded from chems and exhaustion. Even the movement of her limbs and gestures were falling back into normal patterns and what he was used to seeing in his squad-mate. Once or twice she caught his eyes, her gaze seeming to smile at him.

It brought a warmth to his chest to see her recovering so quickly _._

“I’d best be getting back,” Teagan said as he gathered up his tray. “Can’t be leaving the weapon lock-up unattended. They only let me out now and then on the condition I come back. Best not let them question even that privilege. It is nice to see you back on your feet, Knight Reed. Come visit me soon and we’ll see we’ll see about getting your armour running again.”

As he left, Knight Reed was able to turn her focus to the senior officer sitting across from her without it appearing out of place. He was, after all, her commanding officer. That shouldn't seem too out of the ordinary for them to be talking one on one.

“How are you feeling?” he asked genuinely, although he did genuinely seem pleased to see her up and moving about.

“Better,” she said with a nod. “Still a bit tired or weak here and there, but Knight Cade said that would be normal for the next several days. If all goes well, will we be returning to field work once again?”

Danse looked into his coffee cup, swirling the dark liquid slightly.

“Affirmative,” he said as he took a sip. He raised an eyebrow at his recruit. “So long as you promise me that you won’t go and blow your Power Armor up again.”

The Knight blinked slightly at the typically serious Paladin. _Had he just made a joke?_

Perhaps his concussion had been worse than they thought.

“No, sir,” she said as she picked up her own cup of coffee. “I can think of better things I’d prefer to do that to.”

Danse coughed as he sipped from his own mug. He cleared his throat slightly as he cast a glance at her that seemed to feign disapproval. The slightest of hint of color touched his cheeks.

At least she gotten him back from their previous conversation in the mess hall. She sipped her coffee, hiding a smirk of victory.

_Two can play at this game, sir._

 


	22. Back in the Field

_Elder Maxson was an asshole._

Not a giant asshole, but enough to grate against Reed’s nerves in a way that made her uncomfortable around him. Something about him rubbed her the wrong way when they spoke together. While inspiring and a great leader, he was ultimately very black or white. His cautiousness was exceeded only by his overzealous nature when it came to his goals and vision for the Commonwealth. She clenched her teeth slightly, eyes narrowing. The Brotherhood had always professed to want to better the Commonwealth, but it was becoming more and more clear that their means for doing so was in a ‘cleansing’ nature. To eliminate all that stood against them, regardless if they were hostile or not. A black and white view against a grey world.

He’d encouraged them to find a way into the Institute, a common goal shared between the two of them. Hers, to find out information of what happened to her son and determine then what it was that she was going to do. Him, to utterly destroy it, regardless of what they found there. It… just didn’t make sense.

More frustrating still was the disinterest in their lead. A scientist that had supposedly escaped to the Glowing Sea from the very Institute they were trying to find. It seemed a lead at least, whereas all the other teams were coming up completely empty handed. Yet when Paladin Danse and Knight Reed had brought forth the information, it was met with barely a consideration. Not because of the risks, not because of the odds, but simply because it wasn’t a key to their front door. Without proof of attainable information, their lead had been put on their notes as a 'possible consideration in the future'.

A green light flashed in the sky before them followed by a distant rumbling.

“Radstorm coming in, Knight Reed,” an audio relayed over the communications in her helmet. She’d taken her helment off for the moment, enjoying the freshness of the air up here. She lifted it up slightly to catch the message against the buffetting of the wind around them.

“Affirmative,” she responded, taking a look over the landscape as it rushed by. “Put us down closest to the target location then return to the Prydwen until we radio for extraction.”

The vertibird tilted slightly, the pilot scanning for a safe drop point in the increasingly ominous sky of green.

Green gaze drifted over to land upon the figure sharing the vertibird ride today. Paladin Danse was wearing his helmet, eyes and features obscured by the familiar battle-worn visor. She could tell he had been watching her, possibly even smiling behind that helmet of his. She flashed him one of her own before hoisting her own helmet and locking it securely in place with a hiss.

Danse had indeed been regarding his recruit now and then. She was standing taller now, her body language more… was bold the right word? _Perhaps assertive was better._ She had always been courageous, yes. That had been apparent the moment she set foot in the police station. As time continued to pass, however, she seemed to be adapting more readily to the world around her. More steadfast. Still gentle, still kind, of course. That had never changed. Over time, it simply appeared that she was more… capable now, perhaps. Not someone to be trifled with. Someone who was starting to understand the rules out here and adapting to them without a problem.

They’d been posted to random locations throughout the Commonwealth in recent weeks. Nothing terribly challenging or exciting since Fort Strong. He could tell that Reed had been frustrated by the lack of support from Elder Maxson in regards to their gathered intel and refusal to approve a mission to the Glowing Sea. Danse didn’t much blame him. It was a reach at best. Not many could survive the Glowing Sea, let alone some random scientist. Where would they even begin to look? Sending out a valuable team of Brotherhood soldiers to look for a supposed person amongst the vastness of the Sea? It wasn't tactically logical.

Still, it was nice to be out of the Prydwen. Even more rewarding was being able to work with Knight Reed by his side in the field again. Even if their tasks were simple ones, it was better than counting rivets on the ceiling of the mess hall waiting for orders.

Dust whirled as the aircraft scoped out a potential landing zone, spinning down to drop off its cargo in a practiced maneuver. Both soldiers felt a jolt as the aircraft made touchdown and gathered the few provisions they’d brought with them before exiting.

“We’ll radio you a location for extraction once we’ve completed our reacon,” she confirmed with their pilot, voice having an increasingly authoritative edge that Danse found himself rather enjoying lately.

 _A lot had changed since they’d first met,_ he thought to himself.

“Affirmative,” their pilot confirmed. “Ad victorium.”

“Ad victorium,” the Knight and Paladin said in unison.

It felt good to be boots on the ground again. Vertibirds were an essential resource to the Brotherhood and vital in many of their excursions to the more remote locations of the Commonwealth. Part of her enjoyed the trips, the heights, the fresh air and wind. Yet another part of her still developed a pit in her stomach every time she set foot in one of those mechanical marvels now. Apparently that was normal after being in one that was shot down and suffered a crash. Still, Paladin Danse’s opinion of them hadn’t changed much since then and he continued to greatly enjoy the aircrafts, and so Reed simply put on a good face for his sake.

It had been a fairly routine two months since Fort Strong.

At first their return to missions had been kept easy. Paladin Danse saw to that. Straightforward missions. Recon for intel. No direct firefights. In and out missions. He claimed it was to analyze her state of mind and ensure that she was mentally ready to take on tasks like before. That was part of it. The other part felt as if he was being directly protective, perhaps more cautious in how they operated out here. He’d also started to ask her more questions about the world before the war, about what things were like _._

_It was as if he finally believed her past.  
_

Now... now it began to feel familiar again. Comfortable. There was no apprehension about her abilities nor her mental state out in the field. It felt like back when they had run recon and intel from the Cambridge compound. Tasks were increasing in difficulty to what they were used to, what they were best at. Paladin Danse was an exemplary soldier with a legendary operations record. Knight Reed wasn’t the best, but given time, more members of the BOS were starting to recognize her name when it came up. Especially those that were familiar with the Fort Strong incident.

Green lightning rumbled in the distance, getting closer. The Geiger counter in each of their Power suits crackled an advisory as radiation levels began to steadily climb.

“We need to get out of this radiation or it’s going to make us sick,” Paladin Danse stated over their audio relay, glancing up at the skies as if reading how bad the storm might get.

Their Power Armor offered more protection than none when they were on foot like this. Still, radiation exposure was no joke and something to take seriously. The treatment for radiation sickness was unpleasant at best. A thick goop that practically scrubbed the radiation from ones body and veins. _Yeah, pleasant._ Plus, there was the underlying and remote fear of turning into a ghoul. Reed didn’t quite believe the stories about ghouls, but wasn’t one to argue. She was 200 years behind on intel, after all.

“Affirmative, sir,” Gladen said, checking their location on her Pip-Boy. She made a face.

Their eventual target was to be a place called Salem. Reports were of a variety of different types of hostiles in the area that meant they were to anticipate any type of possible encounter. They were to investigate the remaining buildings, clearing as they went. Any technology of use was to be brought back to the Scribes or its location to be marked for later pick-up. For now their drop point had placed them to the West of the point of interest.

“We have three options,” the Knight said, voice slightly distorted from the audio relay between the two. He heard it clearly within his own helmet. “We can continue on foot until Salem, which would mean walking through the storm and taking heavy radiation if we’re not careful. Or, we could continue on foot, but attempt to find shelter on our way before we reach Salem then continue on in the morning. Or… we could stay the night at a local settlement that Preston and I have worked with in the past.”

Paladin Danse made a thoughtful noise. “I’m assuming there’s a reason you didn’t offer up the settlement idea as our first option. Any particular reason you’re apprehensive to go there?” he asked. The trust between the two had grown over the miles. It was easy to identify meanings or unspoken things between the two.

“I know your position on synths, sir, but I’m not entirely sure your thoughts on non-feral ghouls,” she clarified.

It wasn’t that Slog was a bad place at all. They were kind people. All of them ghouls.

Feral ghouls were a terrifying hostile to deal with and they’d had enough run-ins with crowds of them to know how dangerous they could be. However, feral ghouls were simply people that had been utterly eradiated beyond any sense of reason or logic. Their brains long destroyed by high doses of radiation. There were plenty of ghouls that were still mentally sound, functioning members of society, affected only physically. Well, functioning members of society as much as they could be. Their appearance often gave them trouble or caused apprehension amongst the ‘smoothskins’.

A green light flashed above with thunder immediately following. Their Geiger counts squawked unhappily.

Danse sighed and shrugged.

“Your call on this one, Knight. I’ll trust you to take point,” he said honestly. As much as he loathed the subject, if Reed said it was a viable option to help them on their mission, then he would put his faith in that.

If there was one thing he was learning along the way with the Vault dweller it was that not everything was as it appeared. Not everyone in the Commonwealth were terrible people. Some of them were just trying to survive in any way they could. His heart still stayed with the cause of the Brotherhood. He bled for the Brotherhood more times than he could count. Yet life out here had a way of altering ones perception of matters.

Reed chewed on her lip. The wind was starting to pick up.

“Let’s try the settlement, sir,” she finally said.

Slog was closer than any other marker on her current map. With the warnings of hostiles in the surrounding areas of Salem, it seemed most logical to wait until the storm passed before dealing with anything the Commonwealth might throw at them. Especially as they were supposed to be working through uncleared territory that hadn’t been assessed on foot for some time. Fighting Mirelurks in the half-light of a radstorm was not the most ideal military tactic. Or who knows what else might be out there.

The rain began to pour.

* * *

The radstorm had crept up upon them with a vengeance. Howling and blowing winds with alarming speed and power. Dust and dirt had rattled against their helmets as they pressed through the terrain and broken road towards the marker on Gladen’s map. It would have been a foolish thing to travel Salem, into unknown territory, in this kind of weather.

Moisture and grit didn’t improve the operations of their Power Armor much either.

The Slog had been buckled up tight against the oncoming storm. Windows and doors had been properly fastened against the howling wind and an attempt to block out the radiation as best they possibly could. Ghouls naturally seemed less effected by radiation than others. Yet there was always the risk of crossing that threshold of too much radiation exposure, which couldturn into a dangerous situation.

Reed had taken off her helmet as they reached the main door of the facility that once served as a public swimming pool, her hair whipping frantically about. She could practically feel the look of disapproval on her mentor’s face as she left herself exposed from the neck up. She flashed him a smile. “If they don’t know who we are, the chances of them letting us in are severely limited,” she explained.

He still kept his laser rifle at the ready, just in case.

“Wiseman?” she called out with a knock on the door. The settlers inside were likely gathered in the main room as they waited for the storm to pass. These folks weren’t as jumpy as the settlers she was used to dealing with, but they were an extremely cautious group still. They wouldn’t likely open the door for just anybody. She knocked again. “It’s Gladen Reed, from Sanctuary.”

A few moments passed. Thunder rumbled unhappily around them as rain continued to sound musically against their Power Armor. Reed’s lack of helmet was causing her to get wet the longer they stood in the open, her red-copper hair beginning to cling to her features in the wind.

Someone unbolted the door and threw it open.

It was Wiseman, the leader of this settlement and a friend she’d met before. He looked surprised to see them.

“Gladen?” he rasped curiously. He opened the door wide, gesturing a welcome. “Come in, out of that storm. You sure picked an interesting time to drop by.”

Reed sighed with relief. “Thank you, Wiseman. It’s good to see you again,” she said as they hurried in out of the rain. It smelled wonderful once they got in. Someone was cooking up something delicious in the next room. “We are sorry to intrude without sending word ahead. This storm caught us by surprise on our way to Salem.”

“Salem?” the friendly ghoul made a slight face as he bolted the door behind them, doubling-checking that it had latched correctly. The wind whined pitifully on the other side. “Well, you always did know how to handle yourself out there. Otherwise I’d suggest you change your mind. It’s not the safest place to be in the Commonwealth, if the rumours are true. Especially out this far.”

A few familiar faces were gathered in the main entrance of the building. Beds were lined against the wall here and there still, occupied by the residents who owned them. It appeared to be Jones that was cooking this evening. They stared at the duo with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. Many knew Gladen from her previous visits to the Slog, trying to help them set up trade lines with other settlements throughout the Commonwealth. The mystery Brotherhood figure in her company, however, gave them pause.

“I appreciate the feedback, Wiseman,” she said as she smiled at the familiar ghoul. “We’re not going to be there long. Just checking the status of it, seeing if there’s any hostiles we can clear out that might be causing trouble. In the meantime, do you mind if we wait the storm out? We’ll be happy to reimburse you for your hospitality, of course.”

Wiseman gave a wave of his scarred hand as if dismissing the notion. “No, no. You helped us out more than enough already. Come, sit, eat. We have plenty of produce to go around. Just…” he looked at Paladin Danse with a firm expression, “… no funny business.”

Everyone seemed to settle into a more comfortable vibe once the two visitors had exited from their suits of Power Armor and appeared to be regular smoothskins. Those that knew Gladen seemed to be more at ease overall. However, cautious glances or curious looks were passed more frequently to the Paladin as he sat off to the side with his recruit. The Brotherhood of Steel had not always been so kind to ghouls in the past. They were wary, cautious. Just the same as he with them.

“They farm tarberries here,” Reed was saying as she sat on her bedroll with a bowl of Jones’ soup. It was surprisingly good. “Wiseman set this place up after everywhere else kicked them out for being ghouls.”

Danse was also eating, although he was clearly still on a higher state of alert. Ghouls of any kind made him uncomfortable. After all, they’d been taught a variety of things in regards to the threats in the Commonwealth during their rise through the ranks in the Brotherhood. Reed appeared to have worked with them before but that did not absolve them of possible risks for what they were. Ghouls were a grey area of understanding. Nobody knew what it took to turn one feral. It was best to be on guard.

“There’s always a risk with ghouls,” the Paladin said with a sidelong glance at his recruit, although his words were respectably quiet so that no one else might hear.

“There’s always a risk with anybody these days,” Reed said, glancing at him as well. He wasn’t wrong to be cautious. He didn’t know these people. There was also truth to ghouls being reported as turning feral without due cause. Wiseman had confirmed that with her during a previous conversation they’d shared. It was just exceedingly uncommon.

“Still, they shared their shelter and their food without asking anything in return. Even to members of the Brotherhood, an organization vowed to wipe them out as a species eventually. I’d say that awards them at least the notion that perhaps they aren’t bad people, simply such victims of circumstance and prejudice,” Reed said thoughtfully. With enough radiation, anybody had the potential to become a ghoul. It was unfair to stop thinking of them as people, in her opinion.

Danse made a sound that like of a huff, not quite approval nor disapproval. _Still, she had a point._ It didn’t alter the concept that feral ghouls and functioning ghouls were cousins on the same tree, however. The risk would always be there no matter how many kind gestures took place in the meantime.

“As much as I hate to say it, this was a tactically smart choice to come here, given the circumstances,” Danse said with a note of approval. “I still don’t agree with it entirely but… in light of our choices, this was the most logical location to wait out the storm.”

It was the closest thing to a compliment the Knight would likely get about dragging him to a settlement filled with ghouls.

* * *

Yellows and greens cast the sky in a funny haze as the majority of the radstorm seemed to be passing. Night was steadily creeping up upon them, stars littering the Eastern sky nearest the horizon. The settlers had gathered and taken to their beds with the intention of an early start tomorrow. Rain was always a welcome thing for the farmers it an arid wasteland such as this. Especially those that weren’t settled in close proximity to any purifiable lakes or water streams. It was crucial to the success of their crops in the long run. Tomorrow would be a good day.

Danse, as usual, was still awake. It wasn’t abnormal to find the senior officer awake at odd hours during the night. Typically he would take second or even third watch if need be, as he would often find himself rousing in the middle of the night completely awake and unable to sleep any further. To some it may have seemed odd, or they might have thought him unable to sleep due to something on his mind. In truth, he’d always slept in short durations. As long as he could remember, anyway.

This night was no different. Awake he sat in his bedroll next to his traveling companion, listening to the sounds of the ebbing storm while still on a slight state of alert. The ghouls weren’t bad people as far as he could tell. They didn’t make the hair on the back of his neck stand up or give him reason to have a negative gut feeling about them. Still, they were ghouls and the possibility was still there of one turning feral. It seemed a strange grey area to him in their understanding of this potential threat. Being ghouls, he should treat them with caution. Yet he shared a meal with them. He wasn’t sure how that made him feel exactly.

“What’s on your mind?” a soft familiar voice asked in the darkness. He thought she’d been sleeping. In truth, he welcomed her company more than anybody else and was happy to hear her voice in the dim light.

 _What was on his mind?_ Everything. The mission, what tomorrow would bring. Where they were now, who these people were. Life on the Prydwen, life out here, life with her, life before her. What had changed, what had stayed the same.

“What was it like? Before the war,” he spoke in a low volume, mindful of the people resting in the other room.

Rustling could be heard as his partner sat up in her bedroll.

He’d asked some questions before now. Typically direct, focused on a single topic. Nothing terribly indepth. This seemed out of the ordinary.

“Anything specific?” she wanted to clarify.

He shook his head slightly, “… Just in general. What was it like?”

Reed sat cross-legged on her bedroll, hands folded in her lap as her gaze was cast downward in thought. _How did one put such a thing into words?_

“The sky was blue almost all the time. In the mornings it was golden, and at night it would be ruby red at sunset,” she decided to begin with her most memorable thoughts and things she found herself missing. “People lived in one spot surrounded by many others that lived in their own homes. Not unlike the settlements, but beautiful. Nothing was decaying nor falling down. Gardens and green grass everywhere. Birds would sing in the early mornings outside our window. Everything smelled so fresh. Whatever supplies we needed, merchants brought from all over. Food, clothes, medicine. One had to simply go to the store and purchase whatever it was they might need.

“There was hardly any conflict amongst the local communities. Everyone just… did their own thing. Some worked, others stayed at home with their families. On certain days, we would gather and cook together in large parties throughout the community. There wasn’t hardship then as there was now. People were, for the most part, always friendly. If they weren’t, well, they weren’t hostile either. They would just keep to themselves. Nobody had to fight and spill blood for what they had or wanted. There was enough to go around for everyone. It made things easier, simpler.”

Reed paused for a moment.

“There were no monsters back then. No radiation. No ghouls, no giant insects. No fear when you walked around. Nobody was outwardly hostile. Nobody had to kill each other back then. You could let your guard down. You could sleep at night in your own home without having to post a watch or arm your settlement with weapons. It was quiet at night time.”

Danse was listening. He appeared to be heavy in thought. Perhaps there was something weighing on his mind after all. “What caused it?”

She blinked. _What caused the Great War?_

“Politics, the economy, religion, prejudice, differences of opinion,” she said with the slightest of shrugs, not even sure herself anymore. “Back then, people had it easy. They had always had it easy. Perhaps, because of that, they couldn’t see how lucky they really were. How easily all of that could be taken away. Leaders between the countries began to fight, began to send soldiers across seas to fight on their petty wars in the name of religion or principle. Mostly, though, it seemed like ego fueled much of the conflict between leaders. What were they even hoping to accomplish by doing that? Soon the battles became larger, the stakes became higher. Civilians became victims of war. It escalated until, eventually, they decided on nuclear warfare.

“I don’t think they truly realized what devastation their actions would bring until it was too late to change it,” she said sadly.

“It came on the news first,” Reed’s voice dropped, deciding she’d best finish her tale in its completion. “Bombs had been dropped on Boston. Reports of bombers spotted all over the country. The air raid sirens in our neighborhood began to sound as we raced out the front door of our house. Our friends, our neighbors, they poured into the streets in a panic. We saw the bomber pass overhead. I don’t think I’ll forget the sound of that aircraft. Its engines hummed so loud and so deeply. It was… it was death flying over us.

“We were running and made our way to the Vault. Just as the platform began to descend, we saw it. The blue flash. Everyone was screaming.”

Reed unclenched her fists, realizing she’d been twisting her blanket as she spoke.

“It was beautiful before. I wish you could have seen it,” she finished, tone coming back to its normal warmth and kind way of speaking.

“What do you miss most?” Danse asked after a period of silence, curious.

The Knight chewed her bottom lip slightly as she thought. There were obvious things she missed, people she missed. Back then she had been Gladen Smith, housewife, mother. That Gladen didn’t exist anymore. She’d died the moment they were locked in those cryopods. That was the day her family had truly died, locked in a series of events beyond their control or understanding. She’d mourned them. Mourned the loss of her life from back then. That life… it was gone now. The only way to move forward was to mourn what had been lost and treat it like the death of a life it was. Now she was just Reed, someone just trying to survive the hand they were dealt.

“Being warm,” she said distantly. “Hot showers. Not being constantly on guard. Never worrying about the next meal. Being able to talk to people without constantly wondering if they are going to shoot you when you’re not looking. A lot of things, I suppose. It feels like we're always moving out here. That's strange to me still. To not have one specific long-term outpost to call home."

The Vault dweller picked up her blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders as decided to join her companion on his bedroll. When she leaned against him, Danse instinctively wrapped his arm around her shoulders as her head came to rest against his chest.

“Maybe this place might start to feel like a new home, eventually,” the Paladin said as he looked at the woman in his arms. It still bothered him to know what she had gone through before all of this, as much as he tried to hide it. The tone of his voice sounded thoughtful, perhaps even hopeful.

_Yeah. Maybe it would._


	23. Clearing Salem

Dust trickled from between the cracks of the floorboards above them. It was cold in here. A chill that cut to the bones. It wasn’t just the temperature of the air that gave reason to cause chills. Resounding footsteps above foretold of something large, something not to be trifled with, something best left alone.

Reed held her weapon in check. The two were even hyper-aware of the volume of their breathing, seeking to slow each breath and remain as quiet as possible as realization began to dawn on them on just what kind of situation they'd walked in on.

A corpse fell through the floor from above and landed in front of them with a sickening sound of flesh and bone on concrete floor. It bore military fatigues, but were not BOS issued. Some type of escourt guard, perhaps. The body was missing half of its torso, as well as an arm and its head. Deep red blood oozed out onto the floor in a morbid pool. Using her weapons scope, Reed slowly looked up in the dark hole through which the corpse had fallen. An entire dismembered arm was wedged between two broken pieces of floorboard. It moved slightly as if waving.

_Fuck._

Neither of them moved as the creature walked directly above them, occupying the main floor of the building. Each footstep loosened dust and dirt from between the floorboards in tiny clouds that made visibility slightly hazy below.

Outside they had discovered a body, recently torn to pieces. A holotape detailed the encounter and foretold of the poor luck that person had come to and others that may have been in danger. They’d gathered into this building, the Museum of Witchcraft, in hopes of evading some creature, supposedly.

It had done them little good.

Now the creature patrolled the room above, guttural growls and deep-throated thrums heard occasionally as it walked about in slow, looming, booming steps. Neither Michael nor Gladen needed to see the creature to instinctively know what they were dealing with here. The sounds it made. The way it devoured corpses. Its massive stride.

Above them was a Deathclaw, trapped in the building with them.

It wasn’t the first time Reed had dealt with a Deathclaw, albeit this time was different. She understood more about this world, had better weapons, had her upgraded Power Armor and realized what type of enemy it was. If Danse had ever encountered a Deathclaw, he never spoken of it previously. Still, his training had clarified the level of danger this hostile presented. It was classified as ‘Extremely dangerous’, best left to veterans of the field. It was often recommended to take one on only with heavy support and large caliper weaponry at high fire rates. There was no magical way to bring one down except for simply carving it up with ammunition.

The situation presented two options; One, they could retreat and inform command of a contained hostile in their proximity. However, a single Deathclaw wasn’t much worth the Brotherhood’s time. Especially one so far away from their base or points of interest. Plus, it was contained, for now. Or two, they could engage the hostile in hopes of bringing it down between the two of them.

Neither one seemed ideal. It would only be a matter of time before this Deathclaw escaped the building. If it did while they were investigating Salem… it could take them by surprise. At least in here, they had some type of advantage of keeping it contained. If that could be considered an advantage.

The Knight turned to her superior. This type of dangerous situation was beyond her experience level to make the call.

Danse was unhappy with this entire scenario. Rightly so. Logistically, it was foolish to engage a Deathclaw with only two soldiers under any circumstance. Even ones as formidable as the two together. Still, this wasn’t just some creature they’d found wandering in its own territory. This one was city-side. It had already killed, and eaten, more than a handful of humans. This was one they should deal with, sooner rather than later.

The audio relay between their helmets clicked slightly as he spoke.

“I don’t like this,” Paladin Danse spoke quietly, even though the audio was mostly contained within their helmets. “We analyze the situation and determine an appropriate course of action. You follow my lead.”

“Affirmative,” she responded, voice distorted from the relay.

Neither of them opted to turn on their headlamps despite the darkness and shadows of the basement through which they were navigating. Stealth was their main objective. There was no sense in announcing their arrival until they could verify the safest and most tactically logical course of action.

The only set of stairs leading up to the main level were wooden in nature, near the back of the room and leading up to the floor above. Wooden stairs posed an interesting problem. Many of the stairs encountered throughout the Commonwealth were old, pre-war, and prone to weathering. It wasn’t uncommon for stairs to creak and groan with the slightest amount of pressure.

Reed’s brows furrowed at the dilemma.

However, Paladin Danse was already a few steps ahead in his own mind. Sticking close to the stairs would allow for a quick getaway, regardless of what might happen. Should they be found out by the creature they were trying to assess due to a sound, it would be a matter of stepping back, disappearing into the basement and making their escape without direct engagement.

Carefully they ascended. Fortunately, only a few squeaks were uttered from the antique stairs and did not appear to give away their position.

Danse gestured for Knight Reed to hold position as he pressed forward.

The museum was, as many places were out here, in a state of half-decay. The ceiling yielded holes throughout where weather was slowly working its way at the internal structure. Weathered holes could be seen throughout the floor as well, the nearest and largest of which was bloodied and appeared to be where the half-eaten corpse had fallen through.

Internally the Paladin grimaced with frustration. Strange mannequins were strewn about here and there. Some standing, some having been knocked over, others were missing body parts. It made sweeping the room more jumpy and costly, as he had to double-check a few images in his peripherals to ensure it wasn’t actually a human he was seeing.

Something heavy shifted in the room beyond.

Debris and fallen lumber littered the floor, either traces of the walls around them or the falling roof. It was dark, musty. The filters in his helmet luckily kept the smell of human bodies from interfering with his task. He knew enough of what they smelled like anyway. A wet copper kind of smell when fresh. More intense and putrid as time went on.

He froze, grip on his rifle tight, holding his breath. He didn’t dare move.

In all his travels, Danse had never seen a Deathclaw that size before. Not in person. Not on foot. Its horns nearly scraped the ceiling as it walked through the broken down building. Each step made the floor beneath it protest with a groan. The sound of its tail scraping the walls with each step brought goosebumps to the Paladin’s arms.

_Reed had taken out one of these fuckers on her own?_

A low rumbling was heard as the creature turned its attention to another body on the floor, gnashing its teeth slightly as if considering whether to sample it now or leave the scrap of food for a later meal. Long claws on its forelimbs scraped at the floor as it crouched and turned, walking once more back into the other room.

Slowly and carefully, Danse retreated back towards the stairs. They would leave this one for now and request a back-up squad, maybe two, to assist with the take-down of the giant creature.

At least, that was the plan.

Too bad luck wasn’t on their side.

The floor gave under his foot with a resounding crunch, followed by a second clattering as his leg fell through the hole that had developed, slamming the Paladin to the floor with a resounding crash. Adrenaline poured into his veins at both the surprise of the fall and the terrible situation he was suddenly in.

“Dammit!” he cursed out loud as he heard the creatures footstep pause. Their element of stealth was lost and he was momentarily knocked off-guard.

Reed had heard the crash and rushed up the rest of the stairs with .45 automatic rifle at the ready. Seems she wasn’t the only one that had heard the commotion. Large thundering footsteps were suddenly approaching, seeming to shift the very foundation of the building around them.

“Danse!” the Knight shouted as she saw her senior officer’s predicament. The thundering footsteps approached, and soon the Savage Deathclaw was rounding the corner. _“Shit!”_

It was vastly bigger than the one she’d faced off with before. An uncontrollable shiver ran down her spine.

_Fuck this._

Paladin Danse was pulling himself up from the floor as she reached him just moments ahead of the creature. It bellowed. With a Power Armored hand, she grabbed her senior officer and gave a shout as she hauled him backwards as hard as she could. The gears in her suit whirled and protested, adding strength to her movements as she extracted her senior officer from the floor. He stumbled back as the Deathclaw’s massive claws came swinging downward at a terrifying speed to the spot where he had just been.

 _“Down!”_ she yelled as they retreated to the hole in the floor. The one through which the corpse had fallen. _Ironic._

.45 rounds lit up the face of the advancing Deathclaw as Reed held the trigger of her automatic rifle. It rolled through ammunition in a glorious blaze of orange and lead, feeding the creature as much pain and damage as she could. The sound of some bullets ricocheting was deeply unsettling. It made her blood run cold. Flashbacks hit her from the last time she’d encountered one of these beasts. The way they walked through bullets. The way it didn’t even seem to slow them down.

Suddenly the floor wasn’t there and she fell backwards through the massive hole, landing heavily on the concrete floor below. A body broke her fall with a sickening noise. A clawed hand reached down to grab her, but Danse was there to pull her sharply to the side.

The hostile bellowed and growled in frustration. Each step knocked more dirt loose from the floorboards.

Reed and Danse were breathing heavily within their respective helmets, chest heaving from the dangerously close encounter.

“That… is one big Deathclaw,” Reed’s audio fed into his helmet. Danse nodded idly in agreement. No way they could take it out between just the two of them.

Above them, the floor began to groan more loudly. The sound of boards cracking could be heard. Suddenly the floor above them began to give way under the weight of the massive stomping Deathclaw as it tore about the place. Its combined weight, as well as the weathering of the building over time, was too much for the elderly wooden floor. Where once had been an empty basement was rapidly filled with the body of a frustrated and angry Deathclaw as it flailed and crashed through the floor.

 _“Move!”_ shouted Danse as they once more made a dash for the stairs, narrowly avoiding being pinned beneath two tonnes of armoured hide plating and muscle. Dust filled the room and clouded the air as the duo vaulted for the stairs. This building was a deathtrap in more ways than one.

They paused at the top, weapons at the ready, waiting to see where the hostile had ended up. If it was able to extract itself from the basement, or if it was currently immobilized.

“I think it’s stuck,” Reed observed after a time. The Savage Deathclaw didn’t seem to be returning to the main floor. Instead it was growling heatedly below their feet, too tall to stand upright, but not tall enough to leap back up through the hole.

“For now, at least,” Danse agreed. They’d best make their escape quickly before the creature crawled out of its predicament. Deathclaws were known for their unsettling level of intelligence.

“How many grenades do you have on you, Danse?” she surprised him, slinging her rifle for a moment as she extracted the explosives she was carrying from the utility portion of her suit’s storage.

Instantly the Paladin understood her plan.

“Five,” he said, slinging his own rifle over a shoulder as he extracted his grenades as well.

“Think that’ll be enough?” she said, raising an eyebrow behind her helmet visor. They had nine between the two of them.

A blank helmet stared at her, although she could almost read his expression behind all that metal, “I’m not sure. You’re the only one between us with combat experience against these creatures. Your call, Reed.”

The Vault dweller frowned to herself. Her prior experience didn’t amount for much of a tactical edge in this fight. Still, it would have to do.

“Make for the door and we’ll toss these all down the hole at once,” she said, taking point of the situation.

Quickly they moved, keeping close to the walls and away from any weak spots in the floor. Below them the rustling was beginning to get louder and more agitated. A few bumps and sounds of scales grinding determined the creature was trying to fight its way out. The door, their escape route, was around the corner and to the right at the end of a short hallway.

“Ready?” she asked, turning to her senior officer. A strong nod gave her confirmation.

Between the two soldiers, they began to pull the pins on the grenades and toss them into the hole onto the far side of the room in rapid succession. One, two, three, four … They loosened them all off without a glitch, each finding their large target at the bottom of the hole. Each resounding explosion was practically musical. One explosion, then two rapidly, then a third followed by a fourth.

The creature howled.

Each explosion rocked the building that much more, knocking debris from the ceiling and sending it clattering to the ground. The floorboards exploded upwards as splintering kindle, ruined by the shockwaves being produced. The last two explosions were the largest. Each massive boom could be felt in their chests as both parties ducked behind the hallway to avoid the flying shrapnel and debris.

A resounding thud could be heard in the basement as the Deathclaw fell. If it wasn’t dead, it likely would succumb soon. With any luck.

Reed and Danse were reasonably somewhat shaken from that unanticipated turn of events. Adrenaline pumped through both of their systems as they gathered their composure. They’d faced danger before but it had always been calculable. Pros and cons of risks. There had been nothing about tactics here once they’d realized they were in trouble. It was all sheer reflex along with a whole lot of luck and timing.

“I’ll tag our position for additional follow-up,” Danse said, his words confirming his ever-so-slightly rattled nerves. It would be boastful to say that hadn’t been a frightening situation they’d just endured.

“Affirmative, sir,” the Knight agreed, her own voice slightly wavering. _Were encounters with Deathclaws always this chaotic?_ It felt like it. _  
_

A scratching at the door nearest the exit caused both parties to jump to attention. Rifles snapped to operating position, fingers hovering over triggers in caution. Perhaps there had been a survivor in this all along, hiding away in a room, waiting for rescue.

Nodding, the Paladin took point with laser rifle at attention, Reed on his immediate right.

He opened the door. Something jumped back in the dark with a squeak.

_What the…_

Staring back at them both was a hatchling Deathclaw, scarcely thigh-high, surrounded by the shattered remains of other eggs. It blinked its pale eyes at them, apparently fearless.

A click behind the Paladin caused him to flinch ever so slightly.

_“A nest full of Deathclaw eggs. A dozen, maybe more. Smashed to bits. Except this one. No wonder they wouldn’t tell us what was in that case. If I’d known, I would’ve personally told the Gunner bosses and that glorified liquor cabinet Wellingham to take those Diamond City caps and stuff ‘em. Guess we know why that Deathclaw tracked us all the way from Lynn Woods now. We stole her damn kids. Christ, maybe, maybe if we’d just returned the eggs… “_

The holotape ended with a rumbling growl before coming to an abrupt completion. Reed removed the discovered holotape from her Pip-Boy. It had been resting outside of the closed door next to the body of an apparent guard crew. _So that was why the monster had been here._

“Why steal Deathclaw eggs?” she asked.

The Paladin just shook his head. The idiocy of the situation frustrated him more than he cared to admit. To transport dangerous goods without communicating to all parties involved about the risks? No wonder it had ended in disaster. They had had no idea what they had signed up for.

“No idea,” he said, voice slightly hardened.

The hatchling appeared non-hostile. It even appeared curious. A shine covered its body as if still slightly moist. If the holotape was any clue, it likely hatched out from the egg that had been described there not long ago. No wonder the Savage Deathclaw hadn’t left this place after killing all of those found inside. The smell of its eggs and young had kept it present.

The little one lacked the massive claws, the hardened spines. Even the curling horns were but bumps on the surface of its skull as it regarded the Brotherhood soldiers with the slightest tilt of its head. It blinked its pupilless eyes at the duo, the slightest of thrums bubbling up from its young throat. Oddly enough, the face of the hatchling appeared to be rather pale in comparison to its body. Some kind of aberrant marking, perhaps.

“What do we do with it?” Reed asked, looking at her superior. The answer appeared to be obvious of what they were _supposed_ to do. Yet Danse hadn’t yet pulled the trigger.

The Paladin simply shook his head before turning to walk away, instead busying himself with finding their exit from this insufferable place.

“I don’t want the waste the ammunition,” was all he said.

They dealt with hostiles, invasive creatures day in and day out. Mirelurks. Feral ghouls. Super Mutants. Even Deathclaws. All of the creatures actively seeking out to kill them where they stood. Yet, in this case, humans had brought this trouble upon themselves, upon others. The actions of a single group had gotten them all killed and inadvertently put both Reed’s and his life in danger as a result. It was frustrating. All in the name of a few caps. _Caps that they couldn’t use because they’d all died._

In truth, he hadn’t felt any desire to put the creature down.

Reed took one last look at the seemingly harmless creature before hurrying to catch up with her mentor's ground-consuming strides. Deep down, even she’d felt uncomfortable with the idea of dispatching it. Deathclaws were dangerous creatures, naturally. If anyone could testify to that, it was the Knight herself. She'd encountered two now, both instances terrifying. Still, the idea of going around killing the young of such creatures seemed... cold. She was happy to let it be. If it ever came after them again, if it ever threatened their well-being, they would deal with it then. But for now, they would let it be.

The pale-faced hatchling clicked, tilting its head as it watched them leave.


	24. Radroaches

“Another one?” Danse spoke to the darkness in front of him as he sat in front of Listening Post Bravo.

He picked up the body of the dead radroach that had been dropped in front of him, holding it by a mutated leg and looking at it with a lip curl of disgust before feigning approval.

“Uh, yes… well, good work. Keep it up,” he said as he tossed the carcass to the side.

* * *

Salem had been an interesting venture. Nothing terribly of note, save for the entire town being overrun with Mirelurks of varying degrees of toughness. Seems the only person in the place was an older gentleman who had formed his own local militia and outfitted the surrounding buildings with various turrets in attempts to reclaim the area. It had been an easy enough task to clear out the hostile ones they had come across as they wandered the town, much to the disapproval of Braney who warned that they were risking their lives. Still, they'd managed to greatly reduce their numbers within just a few short hours. However, it was a haven for the creatures and there was no doubt they would soon re-establish themselves given enough time. Reed and Danse had noted the location for more frequent patrols, if they wanted to maintain it as a source of interest.

Paladin Danse and the Vault dweller had stayed the night in one of the nearby buildings closest to the outskirts of Salem after their adventure into the depths of the city. During repairs to their Power Armor that evening, matters between the two had gotten quite hands on. Aboard the Prydwen and stationed at the command outposts, the two attempted to keep to the most strict of professional protocols and limit any type of outward displays of affection or intimate encounters. However, out in the field, and when given a secure location, they were free to express themselves without the fear of prying eyes.

 _What could he say?_ Watching her work on that T-60 Power Armor after a long day of cleansing the Commonwealth, hair still matted from the confines of her helmet, body wrapped in the tight-fitting BOS issued jumpsuit, watching her work at the bolts… It brought all manners of ideas to his mind. Back at the beginning of their relationship, he had been more tentative, more apt to let her make the first moves. However, as time went on, he was far more comfortable with initiating their activities for the evening. He'd taken her right there on their makeshift shop floor, surrounded by all manner of equipment. A willing participant, she'd practically invited the whole scenario, leaving the zipper of her jumpsuit down much too far as she worked, all to happy to change her focus instead to working on her senior officer when he came to investigate her work.

It was surprising that they'd completed any repairs at all.

* * *

In the morning, a peculiar situation presented itself to the two companions as they broke camp. Outside the door, curled up on the steps of the building, was the very critter they had met the day before.

With what seemed like a cross between a gurgle and a purr, the little beast rose to its feet as it watched them with interest. Danse frowned. He raised his hands abruptly, taking a step forward. “Go on, get! Go,” he said loudly.

It retreated a few steps, then tilted its head.

The Paladin narrowed his eyes, took aim with his laser rifle and pulled the trigger a handful of times. Reed looked away slightly.

“Why won’t it leave?” his voice said, turning to look at the Knight.

Reed blinked and turned back. The pale-faced creature was still there. It hadn’t even run after the warning shots landed just a few steps from where it stood.

“I… don’t know,” she admitted with a shrug. _Why was she suddenly the Deathclaw expert?_ “You’ve seen these things more than I have. You tell me.”

“Well, let’s move out,” he said with a shake of his head. “It will lose interest eventually and move off.”

And so they had walked.

They’d walked to several posted locations along their next station-point. Nothing was terribly of note along this region of the coast. In the outskirts, missions were a strange thing. Either they ended up being heavily complicated with challenging foes, or hardly a challenge at all. That day seemed to be one of the latter scenarios. After their situation with the Savage Deathclaw not long ago, neither of the duo seemed to really be pressed for another difficult encounter like that anytime soon. Simple missions would be a welcome change of pace rather than being forced to encounter an incredible hostile such as that again.

Yet they had continued to be followed, unbeknownst to them.

It had been Paladin Danse to discover it as he took first watch at their station of Listening Post Bravo. It was a command post that was known only to him and Scribe Haylen, and now Reed as well. It was a small building, cut into the side of a rocky outcrop with deep security walls of concrete and a basement in case of nuclear fallout. It was fairly well stocked and carried amples supplies of ammunition, food and medical supplies. He had seen to that in previous missions. A fallback point if anything catastrophic were to ever happen to his squad or the Commonwealth.

As he took position during the first watch, he had nearly shot the damn thing again.

It rustled in the nearby foliage before popping out with the tinist of growls. Danse had nearly pulled the trigger out of reflex and muscle memory.

“You again?” he said with an inward groan, scowling at the annoying little creature. A Deathclaw hatchling. Not small by any means. Standing at a height just above the Paladin’s knees. Apparently it had taken a great interest in the duo. “Go home, wherever that is.”

The standoff between the two lasted for several minutes. Eventually the Paladin just resumed his watch with the intent of ignoring the beast as agreed upon, hoisting his laser rifle as he made his patrolling rounds nearest their station. Normally the Brotherhood operated with turrets and floodlights at full alert when stationed at a location. Yet, with just the two of them, Listening Post Bravo was silent and dark in the night. No sense in drawing unneeded attention.

A crunch and squeal to his immediate left snapped his rifle up to attention once more as he paused. There was rustle of footsteps, followed by the familiar little thrum of the hatchling perhaps a dozen paces away. Danse himself felt like growling as he lowered his weapon once again. He wouldn’t feel sorry if he accidently shot it at this point moving forward. It had its chance to leave and it hadn’t taken it. Anything from this point forward was its own fault.

He made a slight face as the miniature Deathclaw came out of hiding, finishing eating what appeared to be the remains of a sizable radroach. _Disgusting creature._

The Paladin returned to the front of the outpost after completing his rounds. No one seemed to know they were here, and he intended to keep it that way and avoid altercation. Large steps thudded rhythmically against the ground as he continued to don his familiar T-60. The night was cool and fresh for a change, the wind moving just enough to keep it from smelling too stale out here.

With a hiss, the senior officer removed his helmet, setting it beside him as he took a deep breath. There was no denying he had a strong affinity for these marvelous suits. However, they did get slightly warm after an entire day’s events.

Barely audible footsteps crept up beside him. With a roll of his eyes, Danse looked down with a scowl at the smaller creature.

“I will shoot you,” he said with a stern tone.

It pressed itself up against his leg, pale eyes seeming to glow in the half-light. It blinked up at him with a thrum.

He sighed heavily in exasperation. His brows narrowed slightly in thought.

Yet, he did nothing other than maintain his position on watch.

The pale-faced miniature demon dropped a radroach at his feet with the softest of thuds. Dead, but not eaten. _Unpleasant._

This went on for the majority of the evening, Danse accumulating several invertebrates as gifts from their non-deadly Deathclaw stalker as he sat out front of their outpost. Each time it had returned with a gift, it was quick to venture off again, his little hunting growl hardly intimidating except to perhaps radroaches. Eventually the tiny critter flopped onto the ground beside the Power Armored figure, apparently done his hunting for the evening, rolling for a moment and kicking up dust before curling into a half-circle shape to rest.

_Well, so long as it was being useful and didn’t get in his way, he wouldn’t shoot it just yet._

Brown eyes swept the area briefly before looking down at the sleeping non-hostile hostile. Carefully, he reached over with an armored hand and gingerly pet the tiny creature. It made a sound that seemed to be enjoyment.

_Disgusting creature._


	25. To the Glowing Sea

Dust and earth swirled up into the air as the downward force of the vertibird stirred up the landscape violently with its approach. It gleamed golden in the morning light as it banked and dropped in altitude not far from the extraction point that Knight Reed had communicated just a few hours before. Both figures stood just a short distance away as they calmly waited for the aircraft to make final touchdown.

It had been only a week and a half since their initial drop in this area with the intention being to clear Salem and report on surrounding areas. Their mission had been cut slightly short, however, as a message had come from Elder Maxson with instructions to pursue their obtained lead for a scientist in the Glowing Sea.

Reed had been a mixture of pissed off and excited. Pissed off because it had taken them this long to decide on clearance for the mission, thus limiting the chances of being successful at all. A rogue scientist from the Institute had possibly fled to the Glowing Sea. From the intel Danse had shared, that would have been suicide. Each hour that had passed decreased the chances of ever finding this scientist and lead. Yet their Elder had waited several weeks before giving the order? It irked her.

In the end, they now had permission to pursue this possibly valuable lead. Determination weighed heavily on her mind. If this mission was met with success, they would possibly have more intel on the Institute than they ever dreamed of. There were a lot of factors still at play, and so Reed kept her hopefulness in check.

A resounding thud announced the landing of their radioed vertibird.

With a deep breath, Reed approached the aircraft, wrapping her mind around the next several steps as she tried to formulate some type of basic plan for when they reached the Glowing Sea. No doubt her senior officer was doing the same as they both shared a comfortable silence that morning.

Provisions were found aboard, as requested. Ammunition, supplies, medication. Danse had created a list based on his experience with that deadly wasteland in the past. It was no mission to take lightly. Where they were heading to was a kind of danger Reed had never experienced before. In that he would be taking point in navigation and decision making moving forward with this particular excursion.

Reed hoisted herself, her T-60 and the pit in her stomach onto the waiting aircraft with only mild trepidation. Paladin Danse came up shortly behind, hoisting up their traveling companion first before he stepped aboard with his familiar Power Armor filling up a large portion of the cargo area.

The Knight angled her head slightly as she regarded her senior officer, a small and playful smile hiding behind the metal layers of her helmet. _So, he was bringing it along after all._

That made sense. The Paladin had seemed to be growing more fond of the pale-faced Deathclaw hatchling over the past several days. It didn’t help that he’d fashioned it with a red bandana that he had found, tied loosely around the creatures neck. _So that he would stop mistaking it for an enemy in his peripherals,_ he had explained.

Feeling her eyes upon him, Danse looked up to regard his recruit. It didn’t seem to matter that both were wearing their helmets aboard the vertibird, it was becoming easier to almost feel what the other one was thinking.

“We’ll drop him off when we reach the Glowing Sea,” her senior officer explained with an authoritative edge, as if that would help disguise his strange fondness for the non-hostile hostile. “There are Deathclaws throughout that region. It’s an ideal place for relocation, and where he won’t end up bothering any settlements as he gets older.”

The Knight smiled at his clear attachment to the creature, “Yes, sir.”

In truth, the pale-faced Deathclaw was fiercely smart. Moreso than anyone might have ever thought. Already it understood some of the very most basic commands and responded to them with surprising efficiency. It was even efficient at alerting the pair to threats as they pressed forward the past few days, notifying them with its telltale deep-throated growl of hostility and posture.

Wiping out hostiles and cleansing the Commonwealth. That was the Brotherhood way. Black and white, cut and dry. However, out on the field, life was not so black and white. It was all shades of grey in a world of grey. Those that seemed good could have ill intentions. Those that appeared bad could be truly good people. It was all about perspective, about experiences, about what had happened in the past and who they were now.

It was something that was difficult to explain to soldiers in the Brotherhood. To explain that life in the world perhaps wasn’t as straightforward as they were being lead to believe. A feral ghoul did not mean that all ghouls should be utterly destroyed. One settlement turned raiders did not mean that all settlements required an overseeing government to regulate all settlements from becoming raiders. And before them stood a Deathclaw, tiny and young, but it would one day grow to be a large and ferocious predator. Their orders would have been to shoot it on sight, based on the crimes of its cousins and through no fault of its own.

The Brotherhood was a noble cause, a tight-knit family that desired only the betterment of the world around them in which they existed. One couldn’t help but wonder, however, if their intentions were being slightly mislead? Would all ghouls have to be exterminated in order to claim victory in that avenue, even those who were trying themselves to better the Commonwealth, like Wiseman? Would all settlements truly be made good by requiring them to submit to an overruling government? What would be the punishment if they refused?

Reed watched her Paladin companion keep a slight hold on the small, but growing, pale-faced creature as the vertibird tilted and took to the air. It made a noise half between a gurgle and a squeak, tail swaying as it experienced flight for the first time. The Vault dweller was smiling to herself in the secrecy of her helmet, leaning her head back against the steel hull. She didn’t think the world was so black and white as they were being told. Seated across from her was her senior officer, one of their best in the Brotherhood. His records were nearly the stuff of legends. And even he had not been able to pull the trigger on an innocent, regardless of its species.

Idly she wondered what matters would be like if Danse had held the seat of Elder instead of Maxson. Would the Brotherhood still be so very black and white then?

Nauseatingly, the ground fell away from them at surprising speed. An armored hand held a tight grip on the steel as she felt the familiar pit in her stomach.

They would reach the Glowing Sea in just a few hours by vertibird. After that, they would be on their own. No extraction, no back-up, no additional support.

From what Paladin Danse had warned about, it would be unlike anything she’d experienced before.

* * *

It was visible from the air from even a great distance away. The earth looked like it was still burning, tortured and stripped by the radiation of the war. It appeared first as a yellowish haze on the horizon against the blue-grey sky, barely noticeable. As the miles passed beneath them, it began to grow in size and span out before them further than the eye count see. The rolling hills were etched with ashes and dust, the earth even taking on a faint and eerie glow that spoke nothing but danger to those that looked upon it. If the Commonwealth seemed a desolate place, then what stretched before them could only be described as Hell on earth.

Reed stood as they made their approach, holding onto the railing above them as she braced against the tugs of the wind this high up. A tightness settled in her chest with the rising of emotion, no one feeling standing out above the rest. Sadness, frustration, anger. Did much of the rest of the world look like the Glowing Sea? She’d known it was bad after the bombs, but this… This was beyond words. Metal on metal scraped as her grip on the vertibird tightened in thought, nearly enough pressure to dent the railing she held firm to thanks to her Power Armor.

No wonder he’d tried to tell her how bad it was. Words failed to describe the awfulness of what lay before them.

The world tilted slightly as they banked for a final approach in the still-reasonable area that lay just a mile away from where the Glowing Sea began to spread. Radiation was found even here, although not in the vast and fluctuating quantities that they would find out there. Enough for their suits to protect them. Once they started walking, it would be a different world.

Slowly the aircraft dropped from the sky as it spun to the target location. It took scarcely a few moments for it to touch down, connecting to the earth with a slight thud and only the slightest of jostles. Their pilot was one of the better ones in the fleet.

It was the Deathclaw that jumped from the craft first, its behavior not unlike that of Dogmeat. Intelligent, surprisingly astute. No wonder Danse had taken a liking to the gremlin. Reed and the Paladin followed moments after, stepping down to the ground before off-loading their cargo containers full of provisions. They would need a fair amount of supplies for the journey ahead. Missions into the Glowing Sea were astoundingly difficult. Plus, they had no lead as to where this scientist may have even gone.

Danse radioed to the pilot details about their extraction and approximate timeline for next communication. Radios and communications within the hot zone were hit-or-miss at best, so they would be required to trek back to a designated location to check in every few days if possible.

With a whirlwind of dust, the aircraft left the area to return to the Prydwen. Soon the sound of its rotors were but a distant memory.

The Paladin and Knight fell into the familiar routine of their pre-mission weapon and gear checks. Reloading ammunition. Counting their supplies. This time, Danse opted to carry a gear pack on the back of his Power Armor. Even Reed took on an additional load of gear. When they were nearby other outposts or within transmitting range, it was easier to stay connected with other teams. Out here, one had to carry their own supplies.

Danse removed his helmet with a hiss and tossed back what looked like a small handful of pills, swallowing them without water. His expression was hardened, thoughtful. He was in full mission mode. This was Paladin Danse, the stuff stories were made of. His skills were unquestioned. His experience heavily respected. A field veteran through and through.

Reed caught herself staring at the figure before her, pulse quickening just the slightest. He was an imposing figure when he was focused on a mission. The determination on his face. The way he moved through his checks without falter. She liked the way he looked when he was in full gear. _And when he was out of that full gear afterwards._

“In your provisions is a medication called Rad-X,” he said, the authoritative pre-mission tone a familiar sound now. “If you are able to, take a dose every few hours. While we’re out there, we’ll be helmets on. However, if the opportunity presents itself or we find a low-radiation landmark, we re-dose. Our Power Armor can damper the majority of radiation we may encounter, but the winds are always shifting the contaminated clouds around us. Sometimes you won’t even know there’s a spike coming until you’re standing in it. What the suits can’t buffer, this will act as a flushing agent. It’s strong, but even it has its limits. We move quickly. We stay out of the low points. I’d rather spend half an hour walking around an eradiated pool than spending more than a few minutes trudging through it.

“As we travel, we will identify landmarks. If we ever get separated, we regroup at the previous landmark when able. You do not coming looking for me. I will not come looking for you. Visibility can be limited to only a few feet. We would miss each other completely. If we are separated and cannot find your way to the last landmark, we meet back here. Do not wait at our last landmark longer than is necessary.

“The radiation can, and will, cook you from the inside if we’re out there too long. It will be hot. Listen to your Geiger counter, and your instincts. You know the feeling of a bad situation when you see it, Reed. Trust that. We have no idea if we’ll even find what we’re looking for out there. I will withdraw us from this mission if I have to, if things get bad. Understood?”

Blue eyes watched him as she removed her helmet, taking the capsule of pills and throwing it to the back of her throat with a swallow. The taste of chalk and something bitter sat on her tongue. “Affirmative, sir,” she said with a nod, her long hair now braided back to avoid issues with the helmet and visibility. She’d let it grow over the past several months.

“We’ll scout to all possible landmarks that the Brotherhood has identified as viable locations in the past. Areas that may have some sort of protection either underground or behind walls,” he went on to say, returning his helmet so that his voice once more became slightly distorted. “If we do find this scientist, we don’t know what kind of condition he may be in. He may be dead, turned into a ghoul, or perhaps he is alive but hostile. We won’t know until we’re there. Until then, I take point. Clear?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, taking a moment to focus on what they were about to do, to try and picture it in her head. Danse on point, her behind. They would tag locations, working in a pattern. There would be hostiles, of that there was no doubt. Just the two of them were being sent to accomplish this task. While she felt confident, she also felt the weight of the situation. This was no simple mission of clearing out an infested subway station of ferals. In the Glowing Sea, their enemy would be everything around them. With a deep breath, she spoke with the utmost confidence, “I’m ready.”

He watched her for several moments from behind the steel layers of his helmet. Watched her familiar features, her T-60 armor with its collection of mementos from each encounter, the way her eyes still held the familiar kindness in the gaze he’d found settled upon him back in Cambridge. The Brotherhood had been his world, his life. And now, standing before him, was the merging of two reasons that gave him breath each day. The desire to change the Commonwealth in the name of the cause he held so dear, and the woman who had joined alongside him in that journey. Her voice, her words, the kindness she brought, the toughness she possessed, the ability to overcome even the greatest fears in the Commonwealth. It was hard to put into words the way he felt when he was around her.

Now they would face an enemy unlike anything they’d faced before. Compulsively, he went over the list in his mind, ensuring they were missing nothing. It was up to him to keep them safe this time. It would not be like Fort Strong.

He nodded at Reed as she returned her helmet. He checked his weapon to ensure it was sufficiently loaded.

“Let’s move out,” he said firmly. As they began walking, he turned to see if the Deathclaw hatchling was following along as before. Sure enough, within a few strides, the gremlin hurried up alongside. “Better keep up, Rook.”

The Vault dweller cast a sidelong glance at her senior officer. “Rook?”

Danse walked without looking over, apparently focusing already on their approach to the Glowing Sea. “I had to call him something instead of ‘annoying critter that nearly gets shot every night’. Asshole didn’t seem appropriate.”

They continued on for a moment in silence before Reed stifled a laugh to herself. “Wait, wait… Did you call him Rook as in… short for _Rookie_?” She had a feeling he was hiding the slightest of smirks behind that visor of his.

Again her senior officer wouldn’t look her way.

“Affirmative.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Update: I will be breaking this story into two parts as we continue on. This is currently the conclusion for Part I. I will add a link below when I officially upload the beginning of Part II. Thank you to everyone for your support!
> 
> Part II can be found [Here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5736820))


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